Got Gauge?

You know, there are a lot of things I never had and couldn't get... such as style, grace, confidence, compassion, social skills, Spanish, musical ability (in any form), great hair, multi-tasking, an A in P.E.... I could go painfully on but I won't. You see, knitting has helped me forget all that. I finally found a skill, a talent that I could succeed with and even have confidence in. Now I'm not suggesting by any stretch that I'm a great knitter, just that I feel good about it... it doesn't intimidate me... and with yarn and needles I can even create some style and grace. And as for social skills, well, no big improvement I suppose, but at least with yarn in hand I don't sit there mortally paralized in social situations anymore.

Yet here I find myself, losing hope in my one area of confidence, completely and totally unable to get gauge. Not just on the one project which I actually cast aside (and have since become totally convinced that the pattern gauge is absolutely, positively impossible to achieve without going up about 4 needles sizes and leaving gaping holes... of course I could knit up a larger size with a different gauge but then I might need more yarn thereby incurring more expense with no assurances of a decent outcome) but also on the new Allhemp6 top I tried to start to help me forget the Oasis tank. How can I unwind and stay sane when the yarn, my main source of sanity, is betraying me? See, it's happening already, a sane person would surely just put both lothesome projects out of sight and contentedly return to one of her existing WIPs or cast on a new sock (or finish a current one) but no... that would be a sane person (which, as you know, I only border on the edge of anyway).

So, that's it... I'm defeated and deflated. I think I need to read one of Julie's good books. Or maybe I'll settle in with the sequel to my most recent literary accomplishment Knit One, Kill Two entitled Needled to Death. Ha... I guess that would be appropriate.