Three steps forward...

This morning, I looked at the sweater and knew I was a couple of inches from finishing the body. After that, all that would remain was the neckline.  However, something did not look quite right.

In fact, as soon as I attached the sleeves to the body Saturday afternoon, I had a feeling things were a bit off.

I knew my stitch gauge was spot on because I did a little swatch before I cast this thing on back in early April.

Looking at that swatch again and checking my notes, I realized my stitch gauge was correct, but my row gauge was a little off.  Instead of 8 rows an inch, mine was 6 rows an inch.  As I am usually a very tight knitter and usually have to go up a needle size, I thought it was odd that not only was I using the needle size called for in the pattern, but to get row gauge, I might even have to go down a needle size, something I have never ever had to do!

Normally, being off row-wise is not a big deal because most patterns are written in inches:  continue in pattern until the body is 16" in length from cast-on edge or continue sleeve until it measures 18" from cast-on edge.

This pattern did that for the body and the sleeves; however, once the sleeves are attached to the body, the yoke requires a good bit of instruction based on the number of rows and decreases.

This is where things strayed from course.

Due to the difference in row gauge, the yoke would have been 3 inches longer than called for in the
schematic and the entire thing would not have fit well at all. It would have been really sloppy.

So, the plan was to rip back 6 to 8 hours worth of knitting, all the way back to where the sleeves were joined and do it again, with a smaller sized needle.

This is where we are, although I did not leave loose stitches lying about, I have them back on the needles ready to be joined again.

Before I ripped, I thought I might wrap things up tomorrow, no later than Wednesday.

With the current state of affairs, this might be a Boxing day or beyond gift...

Wish me luck!