In which the knitting gods make their views known

So, despite casting on and knitting the first couple of inches of Doris in a crazed funk (mmm, more more, my precious), I soon realised that something was not quite right. I'm a bit lazy when it comes to swatching - mostly because when I do bother I tend to find that my tension is exactly that required, and then I feel I've wasted valuable knitting time and should just have started all along. Humph. Anyway. So, looking at the supposedly smallest size Doris I was blithely knitting, I realised that it seemed to be - you know - a bit on the big side. Even without blocking or being particularly flat, the back that I was knitting was measuring more like the largest size than the smallest. Oops.

I frogged and selected another pattern. This time I'm going for Grace. Another cardigan, but with no moss stitch (below on the right). And - you guessed it - I swatched. I swatched in two different yarns and wouldn't you know I got gauge with both. Ha. Seems my tension with stocking stitch is very different to my tension with moss stitch. Who knew? I still want to knit Doris though - although next time I promise I'll swatch first.