To Swatch, or not to Swatch, that is the question:
Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
the tinks and frogs of outrageous Gauge,
Or to take math against a fiber of trouble,
and by preempting tempt them: to knit, to count
No more; and by the count, to saw we end
the frogging, and the thousand wanton stitches
that Gauge is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished. To count, to knit
to knit perchance to fit; Aye, there’s the knot,
for in that counted stitch, what measurement may come,
what we have read from our uncoiled tape,
must give us pause. There’s the stubbornness
that makes Perfection of so long knit,
For who would bear the rips and frogs of time,
the designer’s mistake, the proud Knitter’s contumely,
the pangs of colorful mismatch, the stitch’s growth,
the insolence of Cables, and the yarnovers
that patient merit of the unworthy takes,
when she herself might her bind-off make
with a bare Bodkin? Who would Sweaters bear,
to knit and purl under a monotonous life,
but that the dread of something after cast-off,
of miscalculated row gauge, from whose bourn
no knitter returns, puzzles the will,
and makes us rather bear those ills we have,
than to cheat the skein we know not of.
Thus Knowledge does make Cowards of us all,
and thus the Native hue of resignation
is sicklied o’er, with the false start on sleeves,
and enterprises of great lace and complexity,
with this regard their efforts turn awry,
and lose the game of precision.
