Another very spiffy swatch
Make that Two Very Spiffy Swatches. Because really, there's no reason you have to keep those fancy stitches marching along in lock step, neatly regulated by ribbing. You absolutely can work them on stockinette and offset them instead. And nothing bad happens. You might, in face, find that something awfully nifty happens.
The Progression of a Swatch
You know how I'm always telling you to swatch? How I'm telling you that like 75% of knitting questions/problems can be addressed with a good swatch? Yeah, that's today's theme once again. I want to walk you through the swatching that happened for my next project. Keep in mind this is just for a hat (that is, a small project, with no weird fit stuff...about as easy a situation as you could hope for). It started with this (way back last summer...like I think last July). I was futzing around, trying to figure out how a stitch I saw in [...]
More swatches
Remember when I said I swatched a lot...I really do mean it. I showed you the first swatch the other day, the one where the yarn was a tiny bit too fuzzy for the sort of stitch definition I wanted. Next up was this lovely yarn from Green Mountain Spinnery. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's a good bit firmer in person than the Infinity Shawl was. Alas when I swatched, the fabric I was getting wasn't what I wanted either. It's a bit pricklier than what I can comfortably wear as a hat (my forehead is [...]
Oh hey look, more swatches
Yup, somehow there are more. I think I've found a stitch I like...this is both cute and awfully fun to do. But I'm hesitant to use that yarn combo (it's yarn from two different companies, and I'm trying to lean towards using yarns from the same company in any one piece). I love the blue (it's from Dream in Color), but can't seem to get my hands on a gray from them. So, a quick stash toss revealed another promising combo. I will, of course, need to swatch it too (are you sensing a theme?), but I suspect it will [...]
Swatches…that’s really the secret
I'm liking this stripes that don't look like stripes / things that aren't colorwork but look like colorowork thing (like the purple and gray hat you've been seeing). So I'm playing with another version of it. And another... Neither of these are quite where I'll end up, but they are fun to play with!
Double
My deep and unabating fondness for sets continues. And I happen to have another skein of that speckly bit of pretty from Spun Right Round (someone will ask, the color is bug jar). So it seems like there should be another hat to go with the first one, don't you think? The only real question is top or bottom? They're both rather nifty, and I can make a convincing argument for either. Any strong feelings on this end?
Neeeeext
So, now that Curls 2 is off to the printer (did I tell you guys about that? We should talk about that, look for more shortly!), it's time to start on next year's book. Now next year's book is a little different than most. We'll talk about it at length over the next year or so I'm sure. But for now? For now I just want to show off some yarn! Those are two beauties from Seven Sisters Arts (that's Karen Grover's company, formerly of String Theory, so you know everything is going to be amazing). The greeny gold one [...]
Contrast
With the cuffs finished, my needles were empty (cough, mostly, cough), and I found myself in need of a project. I'd had an idea bubbling away in the back of my mind for a while now, and this seemed like the perfect time to play with it. It required two yarns though, so I knew there would be a fair amount of swatching. So first came this. Oh, then this. Um, and then a little of this. And none of those are quite right. Which is fine, they're swatches. They're there to teach me things, not to be perfect. And [...]
Math…please don’t be scared
There I sat, admiring my swatch. Loving it really. The drape, the gauge, the yarn, the color, all was well. Look at that red thing (details of said swatch intentionally and shamelessly obscured in the interest of secrecy preservation). It's Blue Sky Alpacas' Alpaca Silk in Crabapple and it's filling me with glee. The other thing it was filling me was doubt. Had I let my swatching fever take too strong a hold? Was I going to run out of yarn because I'd knit such a nice big swatch? I'm a swatch keeper. I'll rip them out if I have [...]
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