when needles lie

My favorite knitted item to date:

Provence Marl Empire Waist Cardigan

Whisper Caridagn #2:

Knit Picks Shadow in Papaya

Diagonal Baby Blanket for co-worker Ethan

Sugar and Cream, Butter Cream

RosiG's A Little Nightcap

Dave thinks I look very ethnic is this thing that makes my head look ginormous because I have so much freakin' hair.

Used leftover Brown Sheep Cotton Fine in Alpine Lilac.

This.... this is a mess. knit about 10 inches and decided to iron it to see how wide it actually is.

It's 40" in diameter. When I can stomach it, I'll rip it out and figure out what the hell I want to do. At this moment in time, it just makes my head hurt.

On to bigger and better headaches. Pebbles Wide Rib Hoodie.

This is from the same pattern book as the Empire Cardigan.

I'm using Schachenmayr nomotta Extra Merino.

The pattern calls for DK double stranded, US 8 to get 10 sts/ 4 in.

I swatched - I don't know why - but I did.

US 8 didn't work. I got at least 14 sts/4in.

So I tried US 9, then US 10, then US 10.5, and finally US 11.

US 11 is pretty spot on.

There are three needle sizes used, they claim that they are US 8, US 7, US 6.

I had an AHA one morning this week - I think they transposed millimeter sizes with US needle sizes as US11 = 8 mm, etc.

So I e-mailed them and they responded right away - said they'd re-check.

It will be interesting to figure out how I'm going to come up with a 7 mm needle.