Why don’t you fettle the machine before you go, then?
Top Tip for even gathers: Do a widish longish zig zag stitch over a length of dental floss, & then pull both ends of the dental floss together to the desired length.
Carinthia.xx
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An extremely good suggestion, thanks. Buggrit, I’ll give it a go - but not tonight!
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Did someone say “Emma”?
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I fettled the machine yesterday even remembering to fill a spare bobbin
I do occasionally engage my brain
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It’s the oiling ovvit wiv fevvers through me ear that I find tricky ;- )
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[slides outsize pitcher of SheepDip TFMward]
https://www.cocktail.uk.com/cocktails/sheepdip
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Ta, much needed.
[Yes, you silly little messaging thing, I know I’ve replied to Gus 3 times already, and I’m gonna do it again whatever you tell me, so bugger off!]
Hard to believe all that relates to just 42 sts x 16 rows but I’m glad I did it because, oddly, I can ‘see’ the pattern much more clearly reading that than I could from the chart.
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I find that.
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Right, well. Having knitted a tension test from my written destructions, I have a bit of a dilemma. My piece comes out exactly the right length but a good 15% too wide.
I could, obviously, just use smaller needles (which would be extraordinary for me since I knit tight and invariably need to use larger ones) and knit more rows, but instead I am tempted to make a small change to the pattern - if I use M1 for the increases instead of YO then it will come out a bit less wide and will also IMO look more balanced. Would I be mad to try it?
(I also intend to make another change and use P2tog where she has specified K decreases, which to my mind look untidy and are just silly in a block of P stitches.)
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I thought M1 and YO were quite different to look at; doesn’t YO makes a hole in the work? It does when I do it, in fact I think of it as a lace stitch. For ordinary increasing I use either make one, or knit one, knit one in the back of the same stitch.
Definitely with you on the P2tog.
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I’m well on the way to Liberating an Pitcher, TFM… 
Knitting is an Mathematical Mystery to me, as indeed are many things
I looked for knitting needles in the emoticons, & could only find chopsticks
I can’t use those either! 
Carinthia.xx
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I would sit down and work out what dress size corresponded best to 15% smaller bust - this is obviously not much use if you are very slender - and then knit the garment instructions for that rather than messing about with the stitch pattern itself. You can adjust for length easily enough.
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It does, but in this case I think they detract from the appearance of the pattern rather than adding to it - they look to me like a few lace stitches at odd intervals in a textured, rather than a lace, pattern.
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I’m already knitting the smallest size so it wouldn’t be that easy, I’m afraid. I could extrapolate the instructions for the different sizes down another size or two I suppose, that wouldn’t be too difficult.
Hmm.
I think I’ll knit another test using my proposed alteration and see how it looks first. If it works out the right size and I actually prefer the pattern, then that’ll save a lot of extrapolation.
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Sounds like a plan.
Unlike you, I would have many smaller sizes to choose from ;- )
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The mathematical nature of knitting is one of the things I love about it!
No reason why you couldn’t knit with chopsticks, if they were the right size.
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Yes there bally well is. They are tapered, plus you’d get black bean sauce in yer Fisherman’s Rib.
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Conversely, ribs in black bean sauce sounds delightful…
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Done that now and I think I do prefer it so I’m going with my version. I just like the look of it better, and it’s me that is going to wear the thing after all.
It is a bit of an ‘arty’ sort of a design but, looking at the two test pieces side-by-side, I sort of feel that the designer has tried too hard and ‘arty’ has tipped over into ‘arty-farty’. Plus, it reminds me rather too much of designer jeans with deliberate holes in them!
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