Or, Friendship Ended With My Favourite Things Knitwear, Now [Some Other Scandi Designer] Is My Bestfriend
Disclaimer: yes I’m basic, I like MFTK, I know that Scandi designers often have very bare-bones pattern writing/scant schematics, I wouldn’t bet my entire life savings that this pattern is completely error-free/a tech editor worth their salt was used (I knit the Levitate Wrap which has a math error in it that people on Ravelry have pointed out for months and hasn’t been fixed, which is mostly comical to me. That one thankfully turned out fine).
BUT.
When the came out I immediately decided to cast on using some DK weight yarn I had bought in 2016 (made a sweater and frogged a few years later) and had been looming over my shoulder for 5 years because I can’t get rid of it, sunk cost fallacy be damned. I wanted my Norma like the Isager pattern photos. It’s cute and oversized and appears to be on the long side. I swatch, get gauge. The row gauge is important here in my complaint - 28 rows per 4”/10cm. Easy enough.
So I’m blazing through, stockinette on larger needles is super fast, I’m watching Shogun and not really paying much attention once I get past raglan shaping because the body has no shaping and when are the main characters gonna bone?? I get my five colorwork stripes done (per the sample photo) and the section of MC before the ribbing, pull out my measuring tape, measure from the back neck as instructed.
It’s so fucking short. It’s crop top short. I can add another stripe and it’ll still be too short.
Somewhat concerned about having enough yarn to make it as long as I want, I put the body on hold and knit up a sleeve. Per the pattern and the sample photo, I knit four more stripes (seven total) and the MC before the ribbing. SO SHORT. Three-quarter sleeves short. At this point I’m wondering if the model in the sample photo is actually four feet tall, but aren’t the Scandis supposed to be tall??
I realize that the obvious problem is that I must be completely off on gauge. Gauge swatches lie all the time, right? Not here. Bang on row gauge at 28 rows.
It’s now 10pm and I’ve had a drink or two and it’s time to put that middle school math to use. Measuring from the back, each stripe section is 20 rows, you have 5 of those, and then add in the 22 short rows for my size is 122 rows. With 28 rows/4”, that’s ~17.5”. Presumably, that’s what you’d get if you’re following the pattern and want 5 stripes like the sample. But the pattern says you should be at 20”.
THE MATH AIN’T MATHING, LOUISE, WHERE’D THOSE 2.5” GO??
I get to this point and now I’m wondering what row gauge you’d actually need to make it to 20”. By my math, you’d need to be at about 24.5 rows per 4”. Same goes for the sleeves, which is why mine ended up so short.
Now in the scheme of things this is a solvable problem in that I can just add another stripe on to both the body and the sleeves. But I spent EIGHT WHOLE U.S. DOLLARS on this to not have to do math and that’s why I’ll never own a house. AND, mine will look a little different than the sample. It’s the CONCEPT. The VIBE. The IMAGE. My antidepressant working overtime on my anxiety about having enough yarn. The company that made this stupid yarn doesn’t even exist anymore! I bought it because Karen Templer's blog told me to!
I’ve looked at probably every single project page on Ravelry and while some people do add more stripes, I don’t understand how people made it with 5 stripes and it looks fine, but they didn’t realize that their gauge had to be way off.
If you made it through all this and have an idea why this is all wrong, PLEASE tell me so I can stop looking at this sweater in disgust.
TL;DR: The Norma Sweater’s pattern row gauge has to be off by ~4 rows.
