Ignorance is Bliss or the Perils of Tension

I could have probably continued knitting for the rest of my life without ever having heard of The Knitting Guild Association or their Masters Hand Knit program, but noooooo.........I had to decide that I wanted to improve my skills. I wanted my knitting to get better.  I'm reminded of being in graduate school and a woman I knew who "suffered" from Multiple Personality Disorder.  She once told me her life had been so much easier before she decided to "get better" and told this great story over lunch of how a tree had come down in her front yard and she called the tree cutters to come and clear the debris - then the next day called her boyfriend who had been with her the prior day and wanted to know who the hell cut down and stole the tree in her front yard.  One personality came forward to handle the problem, then retreated while another personality came forward who had no idea where the tree had gone.  Life might have been pretty interesting for the people around her, but her ignorance of self was bliss. 

The ignorance of the quality of my knitting has been bliss as well, sigh.........

Now I look at every aspect of my knitting through a magnifying lens;  selvages, tension, gauge, blocking, etc.   I am also lazy, I cringed at the tale of a Master's student redoing a swatch 31 times until she felt she had gotten it right.  I'm beginning to understand why she might do that.

I have blocked and woven little strips in my swatches so I can measure the row and stitches. I relied heavily on the wonderful blog by Arenda Holladay  http://www.arendaholladay.com/ for guidance.

So, I have knitted, blocked, woven little threads and counted stitch and row.  Which after looking carefully at my work is obviously just a practice run. 

Swatch #1

I can't help but notice that in the 2X2 ribbing the second knit stitch is larger than the first knit stitch in the rib.  I'm not to unhappy with the actual garter stitch portion ( let me keep a little bliss of ignorance).

Swatch #2

While the knit stitches are larger in the rib than in the Stockinette Stitch this is to be somewhat expected; however, my rows look like a drunk who failed a field sobriety test.

Swatch #3 Seed Stitch

I was feeling pretty smug about this swatch, even gloating in a small polite sort of way that my swatch did not seem to have the stitch error the picture in the calendar seemed to have, it was about this time I once again noticed how much my rows wandered all over the place.  Hmmmm...... according to Montse Stanley in her book Knitter's Handbook this is a tension problem. 

Well, I don't knit like any of the examples in her book.  Tension problems can include points that are too long, how one holds the needles, inconsistent position on the needles of the yarn from stitch to stitch, etc.  Correcting this fault won't be easy.   I was at a Fiber Guild event yesterday and had an opportunity to talk with a member who had completed Level 1 and was currently working on Level 2 she's a thrower and passed Level 1, so there is hope.  I then wandered over to my friend BSue who was working on her current knit project, this woman is a knitting fiend.  Of course I immediately began looking at the stitches and tension - If the fiber world has a version of a "Shock and Awe" this was it.  Total perfection.  Then she showed me a sock she had completed - I was speechless with admiration - trust me words rarely fail, I once won a lunch if I could keep my mouth shut through a business meeting.  Damn she's good. 

Well....as I remind myself - it is a process.  But I will definitely be heading to TKGA held in Reno this fall for a little education and feedback.  In the mean time I'm going to just keep calm and carry on.