Tuesday 21 July 2009

Attention pattern writers

Dear Pattern writers,

I was helping a lady with a pattern yesterday. She should have been able to get gauge with the yarn she had and the needles she was using, but it was elusive. Finally, I took the book and was reading the pattern details one more time. The gauge in the book is not over the standard 4 inches in pattern, it is over 5.

Who writes things over 5 inches? Why would you write over 5 inches. Who do you think you are to be messing with a principle tenet of pattern writing? Are you out of your mind?

I know exactly why it was done. It was to make the stitch count a nice round number, but for heavens sake, this couldn't have been edited by anyone who regularly edits knitting patterns. Seriously, who ever heard of a gauge swatch being 13.75 cm. I mean really.

10 stitches over 4 inches is a whole lot different than 10 stitches over 5.

There ought to be a law. Or something. Harrumph.

2 comments:

Mrs. Spit said...

That's just dumb!

Sigrun said...

I've never come across any 5" gauge swatches. Lots of 1" and 2" in older patterns. That's probably why someone said you should carefully read through the entire pattern before starting a projectI can spot errors or ambiguities in patterns from pre-reading them, but I'd probably not notice the 5" gauge thing because i expect it to be 4".