I've hit the first snag with my lace cardigan project.
My swatch came out way bigger than the gauge the pattern suggests.
I would dearly love to knit this pattern in sock yarn because it's easy to obtain in great variety of colors and it might provide just the right degree of warmth.
I'm already using a 3.25 mm needle (which said 3mm on the box), I don't think I can get a finer needle with a cable long enough to knit a cardigan on.
I don't think I'm a particularly loose knitter. But I've had this problem a bunch of times - just not being able to get the right gauge and giving up on the pattern as a result.
I might swatch again in a different yarn. I don't have a big enough quantity of lace-weight yarn for a swatch.
The swatch in the photo is supposed to be 4x4 inches (10x10 cm) for the section I pinned, but I had to stretch it to 6x5 to get it to be flat.
Even at 5x5 inches, the (damp) swatch didn't lie completely flat in the horizontal direction.
But regardless of that, the problem remains: I'm not even close to the recommended gauge.
What am I doing wrong? Is this a "continental vs. English knitting" problem?