Yeah, you read it right! DISASTER! Fixable, but a disaster nonetheless!
I cast on for a jacket cardigan for my brother on June 15th. I am knitting away on the BACK…mostly on vacation in the wilderness last week…and I am 130 rows into the BACK…yeah that’s right: 16,380 stitches worth!
I am almost done with the BACK…when I look, really LOOK at it!
“Hmmmm…this seems too wide!” I think to myself. I take out my trusty tape measure…SURE ENOUGH…the BACK is 2" too wide!
Well, this means that the jacket will be 52" around…the pattern should be only 48" for my brother’s little 43" chest. He doesn’t like the BIG SLOPPY look!
Why o why is my gauge so way OFF? I had dutifully knit my 4"x4" gauge swatch!
It was Perfect! So what is the matter??? :??
I won’t bore you with the suspense! Here is the answer: I got perfect gauge with a US9. However, in knitting with the TWEED yarn on a pattern stitch of k1p1 on the public side/purl across the row on the reverse side…it was a “hard knit”. Meaning to say, you really have to work your hands and your stitches to make the tweed yarn stitches back and forth, knit 1 then purl 1. So my hands began to hurt. I remember them hurting. So I loosened up my stitches (not on purpose, just subconsciously) and knit along my merry way!
Well, that was enough to throw off the middle to upper regions of the BACK by two whole inches.
Yes, you guessed it. I swatched and re-swatched and came up with a solution for the re-knit: reduce to a US 8 needle…and reduce the stitches on the needle by 6, from 126 st to 120 st.
Well, it worked…and I am almost done with my re-knit! Yes folks…an entire re-knit pluse several swatches! I tinkered around with a new stitch pattern…but in the end, I liked the broken rib best. (read POST 21 on PG 3 for my frogging method! You’ll like it!)
Anyhoo, that is not the only dilemma I’ve encountered. My brother left me a message, saying that he doesn’t like a jacket to be more than 25" in length.
Well, this ‘pattern’ I’ve loosely been following will look like a
ladies’ cropped jacket if I shorten it, as is, to 25" from the 30" recommended. The 30" looks best with the Front lapel shawl collar “look”.
So, I perused through my knitting books and found a vest (same guage) with the right ‘look’ for a shorter men’s jacket. Instead of a shawl collar, it has a sporty v-neck and collar combination. It will work!
Stay tuned. I refuse to begin any other project til this one is finished! It is a [B]boring[/B] knit…so ‘the problems’ have jazzed things up! 
Oh yeah, and this too: the pattern called for mohair, and he doesn’t like fuzzy. (A guy thing) Which is why the original pattern stitch (twisted rib) didn’t work with the darn Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed. He wanted a charcoal tweed…and lo behold…I had 10 skeins of it in my stash! MY STASH! All I had to buy were the black leather buttons!
It won’t end up looking like the original VOGUE pattern at all.
It will be my own [I][B]R[/B][B]ICK RYAN JACKET![/B][/I] 
My hands still hurt! Is it age? :?? Or just too much knitting?
joints 
All that work. I am so glad it is turning out now though and that you were able to not only fix the sizing issue but come up with some ways to really make it personal and what your brother wants. He sounds a lot like my kids when it is time to make their Bday cakes and they are very particular (too many Ace of Cakes episodes LOL) DH says “you know you can tell then no and buy a sheet cake” but I am like you, I just want them to be really happy with it and for it to be what they want. I know your brother will be thrilled with the final product because you have gone to such effort to make it just what he wants. I can’t wait to seet he FO, but not so much that I want you hurting yourself so maybe slow down a bit! LOL