New Territory

A while ago I started knitting "Kat's Pretty Pink Dress" from Greetings from Knit Cafe by Suzan Mischer. I love the book, and had always wanted to make the dress, but the yarn was too expensive. A few months back I found the perfect yarn for it, in the clearance bins. Got the yarn, got the needles, and started out without a gauge swatch. (You can tell where this is going, right?) After about an inch I realized it was really small, measured my gauge, and found out I was knitting at 6 sts per inch instead of 4.5 sts per inch. Rip rip rip, recalculate stitch total, start again. I am used to reworking stitch totals to fit my gauge. I very rarely get gauge, and prefer to adjust the pattern to my gauge than to keep trying with different needles or yarns. However, I always just switch out stitch totals at any given measurement, ignore row gauge, and knit the pattern exact as written. I've had less than desirable outcomes. Not this time. I accounted for my new row gauge, recalculated decrease rates, and got a few inches into it when I realized that the waist measurement will be too small. I'm skinny, but not 30 inch waist skinny. So I did something I've never done before. I measured myself at bust and waist, added some ease (since I'll have to wear a slip under the dress), measured the length between the two points, and working with the total length as the same rewrote the pattern to fit my body. The dress is worked from the bottom up, so I won't be able to try it on until it's finished, but I changed the pattern from pieces to being worked in the round so it should be more obvious if there is a mistake. Hopefully I'll have end up with a beautiful dress and a new skill in my repertoire.