Did you know that swatches lie? You could spend hours knitting, washing, and blocking swatches just to make sure your project comes out perfectly, but that could all go to crap once you start knitting the damn thing. So what is the damn thing? This is the damn thing. Pretty, huh? Well I swatched and washed (4 swatches to be exact) and cast-on (tubularly casted-on, too!). The damn piece I'm working on is supposed to be about 8-3/4 inches wide, howcome my piece is only 7 inches? ... Uh, okay. So the pattern gauge is 18st/4inches and would you look at that, I have more than enough Cascade 220 (which happens to knit up at exactly that gauge) in my stash. The yarn that the pattern calls for is some swank cashmere, to which I find out later from Yahaira, that knits up at 13st. Okay, interesting. We are both throroughly confused now as the pattern calls for that yarn to be knit on US 9s and 10s. But to squish a such a bulky yarn to such a tight gauge? Very odd, very odd indeed. Now I'm not so sure how to proceed. Did my swatches really lie to me or did the book? Would you have guessed that this pattern is from Knitting Nature? Was I just asking for it when I bought this book? I'm hoping that my swatch did lie to me and that it's not a typo in the gauge. Because if the book lied, I don't have any stash yarn in that gauge. UGH!