Hope Springs Eternal

In all honesty, part of the Natayla pattern is a free form adventure. I found that I do not fall into the category of "average" when it comes to most knitting patterns. In the end, I modify a pattern so that it fits me. Which is why I tend to do things like scarves, or hats, or things that are easily modified to fit me, which isn't all bad. But I have a problem when it comes to things that require fine-tuning for it to fit. Like the Natalya arm warmers.

Let me set the stage: I have already guessed/estimated/taken-a-stab-in-the-dark about the circumference of the pattern. I went down a needle size to compensate for the fact that I understand that I'm smaller than average. I work the pattern until I feel that it's time to work the thumb gusset.

The thumb gusset in the pattern is, well, really long. I do not have large hands, so I try it on and estimate that I should stop when I have approximately 9 gusset stitches. Then I realized that it's wayy too long, so I rip back and set it at 7.

I then estimate what's supposed to be the top of the hand. I apparently start on the wrong row or something, probably because I didn't do the thumb gusset the way that the pattern tells me to. So estimate that the top of the hand would be a repetition of 4 and an extra one (I probably should have done extra two instead).

Then I estimate the size of my fingers compared to the rest of the population that makes up "average." Whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. That takes approximately 400 million eons to work out. I take up the normal 11 stitches for the index finger, then realize that I should probably decrease. Takes me 3 tries. I start with 11 and decrease to 8. Then my middle finger is taking 10 stitches and then keeping it that way; it took 5 tries to get that figured out. My ring finger uses 8 stitches and keeps it that way; that took 5 tries as well. The pinky needed to add two stitches to the leftover 6 stitches; that took 3 tries. The thumb needs me to add 3 to the 7 from the gusset; that took me 4 tries. All five fingers required me to rip out 20 times. I am learning to hate this project.

To add insult to injury, the fingers had gaps between them that needed to be repaired, stitches would fall when I ripped back, I needed to add yarn because there wasn't enough to go all the way for a finger...

And there's one more to go. I am not terribly excited about it. But the hope that through all this trial and error the left hand will go more smoothly and I can remember to cross the cable the other way.