So I got back to knitting my frill. I only knit about five more rows when I decided to start another project, a gift. My knitting can be sporadic at times so I decided to start now to have any hope of finishing by Christmas.

It’s going to be the Butterflies are Free scarf from Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation. I just got the book the other day and read Decode the Code. At that time I thought it was like someone turned a light-bulb on in my head. But my light-bulb must be faulty because when I read it last night, it made such perfect sense but today when I started knitting this scarf it all went to crap.

So what happened?!

Well in the book the gauge says 16 sts and 20 rows = 4″ in St st.

So “decoding” it I get 4 stitches makes 1″.

So then I look at the gauge on the yarn label. It says 4 sts = 1″.

So I’m like ALRIGHT! I can just start knitting and it’ll be perfect. Nope didn’t happen, it’s not right. It still looks like a scarf, just a really really super skinny one. Now am I not understanding after all? “Decoding” the pattern again when I cast on 12 stitches so that means my scarf should be 3″ wide. Right? But mine was a 1.5″ wide scarf. So I frogged it.

I looked more closely at the directions and the yarn label. In the book it says use US 6 (4mm) needles. On the yarn label it says use US 10 (6mm). So if I switch to US 10 will it be right then? Will it be 3″ wide? Or is that still wrong because the gauge in the book says “in St st” and my yarn label doesn’t say “in St st”. Aaaahhhh now I’m sooooo confused! I’ve taken an imaginary bat to my imaginary light-bulb in my head and smashed it to bits.