As in the case of the SABLE, this article is not about a knitted project so much as it is about other problems with knitting. In the SABLE article, I pointed out that you shouldn't let your yarn run your life. Yarn can not only run your life, it can also ruin it, which seems to be the case with the woman who wrote the following article.
The author did not post any photos of her knitting, which is probably just as well. I can't be too hard on her because she, unlike the other knitters featured in this section, is well aware of her lack of ability. She doesn't try to defend the crap she knits or make excuses.
I did, however, find her lack of perseverance frustrating. She can't knit; she needs to take a class. She knows the stitches, but she still can't knit. She needs to learn about yarn weights, gauge, and blocking. For example, she talked about how for one project, she chose a bulky weight yarn for a project designed for worsted weight yarn. Hoping to compensate, she knitted a smaller size, but of course it didn't work. Bulky yarn earns its name; it is considerably thicker than regular yarn. Worsted weight yarn will knit around five stitches per inch, while bulky is more like three stitches per inch. This results in several inches' difference in the finished fabric. For example, my Obama sweater, knitted in worsted weight, is seventy-six stitches across. A bulky weight sweater which fits me the same way is about fifty-five stitches across. That's considerably fewer stitches than you will see in just moving down one size. A basic knitting course will teach you as much. Actually, she said she taught herself to knit out of a book. The book should have mentioned that. If not, it's a crappy book, and she needs to get a better one with more useful tips.
Anyway, I mentioned my frustration at her lack of perseverance. True, she said she's been knitting for seven years, but that's only how long it's been since she first picked up the needles. If she's only knitted a handful of projects in the meantime, of course she hasn't improved. If she had worked at it steadily, she would be the kind of knitter she wants to be by now. I certainly had to practice a lot before I got where I wanted to be. When I first started knitting, I had trouble casting on and holding the needles and yarn correctly. I couldn't figure out how to undo mistakes, check my gauge, change colors, work cables, etc. Most of my early projects were failures destined for the trash. Nine years later (as of this writing), I regularly work patterns with cables and intricate color work. Indeed, most of my patterns are of my own design. I certainly didn't learn pattern design overnight, though.
The trick to being a successful knitter is not to get carried away and attempt that which is beyond you. For instance, this woman described one of her sweater disasters and said she had chosen pattern of intermediate skill, but she's clearly still lodged firmly at the beginner level. If you consistently attempt projects which are out of your league, of course you're going to meet with failure, get frustrated, and give up. I didn't attempt anything other than basic shawls, scarves, or blankets for the first year or two I knitted. I didn't incorporate stripes or cables into the first several projects I did, and I stayed away from shaping, circular knitting, etc. till I definitely knew what I was doing. It took time, but it was well worth it. The skill in knitting is proportionate to the patience of the knitter. My Dead Kennedys shirt and Obama sweater would not have come out well had I not spent hours tweaking the designs. All those fine gauge lace shawls and dainty cabled socks you see on the web were not the result of haphazardly slapping together a pattern that looked good. Well-fitting projects result from careful planning and extensive practice. Knitting R&D, if you will.
Like I said, the skill in knitting is proportionate to the patience of the knitter. Knitting is a slow process, and so is learning it. You can't rush into projects, and you can't get instant gratification. Also, once you've started a project, you should keep working at it rather than setting it aside since not only will that prolong the completion of the project, but you are apt to lose your place in the pattern. Working at it consistently will keep it fresh in your mind, and you will be less apt to make mistakes. Another problem in leaving knitting too long is that you tend to lose your enthusiasm. Several of my knitting projects have taken much longer to finish than I'd have liked, and by the time I finally got around to completing them, the knitting felt more like a chore than anything fun.
The knitter said she had problems with one sweater because "the instructions were confusing." I'd be willing to bet they weren't, just that she didn't understand them. Then again, I've seen so many badly written patterns that perhaps I ought to let that one go. However, she did have some serious--and avoidable--problems with the sleeves. She said "the left sleeve was long and skin-tight and close to grazing the floor" and "the right sleeve was baggy and almost as long." Any decent knitter could tell you that you ought to knit both sleeves at once so as to ensure that they are the same length. As for one sleeve being tight and the other baggy . . . I can only guess that she picked up or dropped a lot of stitches on one sleeve; either that or she has no idea how to increase stitches. When increasing or decreasing stitches, you should keep track of how many stitches are on the needles anyway, just to make sure you haven't made any mistakes. Even one is an annoyance to fix, twenty or thirty (by the sound of her project) will completely ruin a project. Also related to gauge, she described the body of the sweater as wide and not long enough. If she had checked the gauge and used a measuring tape, she could have avoided that problem. Knitting patterns, like recipes, are designed by flawed people and therefore have flaws. Thusly, you should study the pattern beforehand to check for mistakes, and use your common sense. Also, try things on as you go. Hold up your knitted work to completed projects or garments that you know fit you. That will help a lot of measurement problems.
Most of this woman's problems could be solved if she would practice on simple projects before diving into sweaters. She needs to make dishcloths, scarves, and simple blankets until she's got the hang of it. If you are winding up with a different number of stitches on the needles than you had when you started, it's not on purpose, and you don't know how it happened, then you are not ready for real knitting. Learn the basic mistakes that all beginners mistake and how to fix them; then move on. It's a bit like running the numbers was in accounting before Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston came up with VisiCalc: Each value is linked to others, and one mistake spells disaster. That's why checking your work (especially with color work and cables) is so important.
I suspect this knitter could save herself a lot of angst if she'd buy a calculator and gauge meter. She should also wash and block her swatches before basing a gauge on them. If you're unfamiliar with a yarn, you definitely need to figure out how it works as a fabric before starting a project. Yarns can really stretch out in the wash, which in turn will throw off your gauge considerably. I learned that lesson the hard way. I once knitted a whole shirt in ribbing, threw it in the wash, and it came out twice as wide as I'd planned. I'd knitted a swatch, but I hadn't blocked the swatch. Several years later, I now damn well know better than not to knit and block a swatch. The same goes for trying to knit patterns in different yarns. Some years ago, before I really understood pattern design, I tried to knit a sweater from a pattern in a magazine in a different yarn. I wanted to use worsted weight rather than sport weight, and it was a disaster. I realized that knitting the same number of stitches wouldn't work, but I didn't know how to recalculate the pattern stitches. I sat and fiddled with a calculator, trying to figure out how to reduce the number of stitches down to something that would work with worsted weight, but I couldn't figure it out and gave up. Now, several years later, I can look at the same pattern and tell how to reduce the stitches to my own specifications. This knitter could, with practice, be a decent knitter, even a great knitter if she'd just put in the practice.
As with anything else, knitting takes a great deal of time and practice to get right. It isn't that it's particularly difficult; it just requires a lot of patience.