Swatching? What's that?

I've been secretive about my latest project. Not entirely intentionally, just because I've been quite busy lately and haven't had time to make an epic blog post about my latest knitting endeavors. I've started Alouette from Rowan's Vintage Knits with some lovely DROPS Alpaca I got from Beehive last week (during a fairly successful trip - more on that tomorrow). Last weekend, I was rushing to head out to see the new Superman movie and I was without some suitable movie knitting, so I quickly cast on the size for my usual measurements and went on my merry way. Big. Mistake. Well, not a HUGE mistake (because I think the colours are working out pretty well), but now that I'm into the pattern a little bit, I can see that I'm not getting gauge and the pattern is turning out a little holier that it should be. See:



So I've got to rip about 3 hours worth of 1x1 ribbing (not to mention a couple hours of pattern work too) and start again. The last wrinkle is that I don't have any smaller needles that aren't DPNs, so another trip to Beehive is in order. Let's see if I can get in and out of there without buying more yarn.