Tension, I'll show you tension

It's always there at the beginning of the pattern - you must do a tension swatch before beginning the garment, and for years I used to ignore it. Nowadays though I'm pretty thorough, and as my resource for knitting patterns and yarns has now extended beyond the local wool store I think that's probably a good idea.

So when I started this cardi, I did the tension square, chose the correct size needles and knitted away - but over time I felt the tension looked like rubbish, or inconsistent at least. So I rechecked the tension, pulled it all back, made the adjustments and went again (I wrote about this here).

At the end of the first front I found my cheap import bamboo needles were probably the cause of the few snagged and split stitches that were still appearing - and went and bought new needles. They were joyful, such an improvement to knit with, and so on I went. There was a little voice in the back of my head that kept raising the question about whether this change of brand and improved feel of the new needles would effect the tension, should I do another tension square? Should I again pull back the whole thing? Ignoring what is now clearly saner thinking, I knitted on, and on, and on (see here).

Today that marvellous moment arrived, when I cast off the last stitch, admired how neat the cast off row looked, and how neat the hem line looked considering it was end row stitches (the garment is knitted in one piece sideways), and that overall it looked so neat. Oh happy days, it's done and it looks good! Of course this was all scrunched up in my lap in the car as we drove up the M1 in torrential rain.

Then I pulled my lovely new crotchet hook out and crossed my fingers that I could produce something neat enough with my limited crotchet skills, at least the instructions for the crotcheted edging sounded simple, I did a little test and thought I could successfully wing it. After sitting down with a pot of tea the hem was edged. Then the fun bit, I went and picked out the buttons, cute baby pink checked ones.

Back in the hotel room tonight I wove in all the edges, and was just about to sew on the buttons, when laying it flat on the desk I froze. How, really how, had I not once noticed, or checked back on that nagging thought that the new needles may have changed the tension? But there it was, one front was a good inch longer than the other at the bands, by the side seam it matches (where I had been knitting with the new needles already)

It looks so obvious laying flat like that, I've really learnt a lesson about knitting on the go and measuring on your knee here. So that's it, the whole thing will have to be undone and re-knitted....again. As it's all in one piece, and its the first bit that's wrong there's not really any other way out of it but starting from scratch, undoing 3/4 of correct tension to fix the first wrong quarter. If it wasn't for the lace section I would at least have a go at just knitting this section and grafting it, I may possibly attempt to knit it backwards from the side seam but I don't hold much hope of that working out.

I can't bear to think of it, in fact I can't bear to even look at it right now. It's a bit like there's a naughty dog in the corner that's just dug up the yard, I keep giving the evil eye but know I can't really blame it! Even room service dinner and 'The Holiday' isn't helping, in fact its reminding me of Christmas and all the other knitting I was going to have done by then. Perhaps if I'm good at least this one sodding cardigan will be done and worn by Christmas!