Now Norma Knits

A Reader's Digest of Comments from the Anti-Swatchers Club

How about we end February with a series of comments left on the blog recently related to Swatching With Reluctance, with a few of my annotations. The italics parts are mine.

I have never understood swatching. I hear people talk about it and I know it has something to do with gauge, which I also don't understand. Do you swatch in stockinette or garter or try to follow some portion of the pattern you intend to use? If you need the pattern, what about borders and such?And what's with the washing first? Is this why my perfect project ends up either fitting Barbie or Bigfoot instead of my family after it's washed? I always follow the pattern and the washing instructions for the yarn and nothing I make ends up useable except scarves and dishclothes.

• Commenter name: Pam

(This, my dear Pam, is I suppose why those swatching drill sergeants say you should swatch, though I have never found that a swatch really tells me much except that I am one of the blessed ones who knits on the labeled gauge darn close to 100% of the time. By stating this with such hubris, I am sure I will be bit on the butt for my next project. Also, just start knitting your project. Then measure the gauge. There's your swatch. If it's not coming out right [like my mom's Shetland wool sweater recently, I ripped out 9 inches of knitting because it was too loose, but I maintain that a little 4-inch swatch would not have told me that.] But of course this does not account for stupid annoying, slippery, squeaky, ugly superwash yarns which grow exponentially every time you wash them -- and if that's not bad enough, they pill like a mofo too -- so I just don't use them. Problem solved. Heh. But of course, all this so-called knowledge and all this highly opinionated opinion-making was born of experience. You just have to try and see what works for you. What works for me is what works for most of the rest of these commenters, it appears: Just knit the damn thing.)

Yeah, but when you swatch, you have to do one big enough, you have to measure it, count the rows, then wash it, let it dry, block it and measure again. I could get two sleeves done in that amount of time. Well, maybe if they were barbie sleeves, but you get my drift.

• Commenter name: Stacy

There are lies, damn lies and swatch-lies. Also, I guess I'm kinda cheap, God Bless Me. It pains my cheapsake soul to waste perfectly good yarn to make a #@^&* lying swatch!  <----- ME TOO!

• Commenter name: Joannah

I do swatch, but it is a frustrating experience - my swatches seem to have little relation to the knitted item that follows. (large sigh) Just knowing that you should wash coned yarn is useful. I once used yarn that my sister bought at a farmer's market. I debated washing it, because it just felt - wrong - but in the end did not. It ended up okay, but if I had it to do again, I would go with my gut and wash that thing before knitting, instead of after.

• Commenter name: Robin V

I'm so glad to read the comments from people who don't swatch much either. About the only time I do swatch is if I'm substituting yarn.

• Commenter name: Sandy

I swatch reluctantly, but not if I am very familiar with a particular yarn.

• Commenter name: Cindy

Swatch? I don't need no stinkin' swatch. Well....maybe ...sometimes. Glad you stayed safe. When does Mr. Jeffries come home?

• Commenter name: emmy

<---- He comes home this Friday! We miss each other. Abigail sent this photo of him just looking depressed in his crate.

"OK, I'm in my crate. Can we go home now?!" 

(or maybe I'm reading a bit into it)

I don't like swatches, but sometimes I do them....... I once knit myself an Aran cardigan (unswatched) that turned out to be an Aran bathrobe, size enormous. I'm lazy, but I am teachable!

• Commenter name:  Barbara M.

Swatches, I hate 'em, but I force myself to do them sometimes. Hope things up there get sunny and clear soon!

• Commenter name: Becky  <----------Me too! And so do my little seed babies:

Swatches are good in many occasions and they always give us something to blame!

• Commenter name: Rachel

I'll usually swatch if the yarn isn't very smooth or if the FO is going to be a garment for someone else. Hope you had a good drive home today!

• Commenter name: Jess

And I'm a non-swatcher, too. I measure the pieces as I start.

• Commenter name: Mary Fran

Swatches? I do make them because I often substitute yarns in my knitting and need to confirm gauge...but finished swatches add to my in-progress, patchwork, crazy quilt-type afghan, so I don't mind them. Stay cozy!!!

• Commenter name: Lynn

I agree with you Norma about doing a swatch - I only take the time when it's absolutely necessary. (Oh, and you are all invited to Atlanta where it will be in the mid-60s today and a balmy 75 degrees tomorrow.) <--  That last part of the comment was just MEAN! 

• Commenter name: Lisa H.

Swatches are a total pain, but I do them sometimes. Not often, but there are times when they are, alas, completely unavoidable. It sounds like yarn all gooped up for machine knitting is one of those times, alas.

• Commenter name: Laura

I'm not a big fan of swatching, but I do swatch when I'm using a yarn I don't know well, or when I have to get a gauge not normal for the yarn. But only enough to see if it works. I don't make huge swatches, and I don't detach them from the ball, wash them, or do any of the myriad other things I've heard people recommend one do with those fancy swatches. I just want to start knitting with a semi-reasonable idea that what I want to knit with that yarn will actually be what I wanted to knit with it. Not much to ask, right? 

Commenter name: Christine

I loathe swatching - a waste of time and yarn for something that's going to lie anyway... 8) When making a sweater, I'll often start with the sleeves - they're just very large swatches. If I've goofed with needle size, I start over, but if not, I'm off to a flying start.

• Commenter name: gayle

I don't swatch, either. I just start knitting...then if I decide I don't like the way it's turning out, I pull it out and either change needle size or stitch pattern. So I guess it's a hit-or-miss superswatch sort of system. Once I knit most of a scarf for a friend holding the yarn double before I convinced myself that I really thought it would be better if I only used a single strand and started over.

• Commenter name: Elizabeth

As a rule, I don't swatch. I have a couple of times, more out of curiosity. Looks like we have an anti-swatch club in the making here :^)

• Commenter name: Marianne

I am also an anti-swatch person. I am glad to be with friends here!

• Commenter name: Stephie

I, too, am totally anti-swatch. They take time and who wants to spend a bunch of time trying to count those little stitches? Besides all that...the little buggers lie. They lie I tell ya!

• Commenter name: Marilyn

I hate to swatch too. It falls in the "I should but..." category. Did you at least sleep well in the hotel? Sometimes, that's the best part.

• Commenter name: Collette

Plus, swatches lie! I was reading the Friday post when your tweet about this one popped up in the corner of my screen. It was very odd to be reading your post and have your face suddenly appear..... <-------You're not the only one! Having my face suddenly appear would be unnerving to several people, I think.

• Commenter name: janna

Improving on the Original -- and a PSA For Sliver Moon Farm Yarn Purchasers

I was packing up my three completed red scarves to bring over to the collection basket at Grand Isle Artworks the other night. I felt that the lengthwise garter stitch scarf I completed in August didn't feel quite "finished". I still had some of that yarn left in the dark burgundy/plum red, and I decided to add a crocheted edge to the scarf. Big improvement, I think.

Before:

After:

The yarn is a DK-weight superwash super-soft lambswool that I bought years ago on eBay. It was a pretty nasty-looking beige color when I bought it. I over-dyed it with various colors of Kool-Aid, and it sat unused for a few years. Now it has a new life and it will hopefully make a college kid happy -- verrrrrry happy! 

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And if you bought some superwash yarn from Sliver Moon Farm at either Rhinebeck or the Southern Adirondack festival, here is a message for you from Kay:

 

If you or anyone you know purchased worsted yarn at our booth, Sliver Moon Farm, at Rhinebeck or Southern Adirondack, marked ‘Worsted 100% superwash BFL wool, 250 gram’, it is NOT superwash. 
I spoke with the manufacturer on Tuesday to order more, and they told me they had learned it may not have had adequate superwash treatment. I knit a 5”x 4 3/8” swatch upon learning this(9 3/4 sts/2”, 12 1/2 rows/2” on size 7). After washing on regular cycle with jeans, it measured 4 1/2”x4’(10 1/4 sts/2”, 13 1/2 rows/2”). After going through a regular cycle in the dryer, it measures 4 1/2”x3 1/2”(10 1/2 sts/2”,15 1/2 rows/2”). If a you or anyone you know wishes to return or exchange this yarn, please contact me through Ravelry or at kayatslivermoonfarmdotcom. The skeins sold for $34. 
I am TERRIBLY sorry . I still love the yarn and am knitting something for myself out of it. It hand washes beautifully, and the stitch definition remained even after its washer/dryer escapade, but it DOES shrink!!!

 

 

Stolen From Abigail: "The Best XKCD Cartoon Ever is the Best XKCD Cartoon Ever" -- AND Actual Knitting Content (No Joke!)

 From here.

P.S. If the full cartoon is cut off, you can either click it to make it bigger (thereby making it bigger, haha) or click the link for the cartoon at the original site. (I was having some problems with the formatting and in my previews it seems to be cut off on the right side.)

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Finally the tendinitis has eased enough (of course, because I have a P.T. appointment at oh-dark-thirty tomorrow morning) that I have been able to do some knitting. I've done a teeny bit on my mother's Shetland sweater, but that's still a bit painful, so I've gone more for the softer and easier option -- the Calmer sweater -- and great progress has been made.

I'm about at the place where I need to figure out what to do with the v-neck. 

I've even done some swatching. Please note, you are on the RIGHT BLOG -- yes indeed, the anti-swatcher has actually swatched. Mark your calendar.

This is the second attempt, and though I have not yet figured out exactly what I want to do with that damn V, I have learned what NOT to do, so that's something.

I also reminded myself of something else really important:  I love Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool yarn. I discovered this years ago, and panicked when the rumor was that they were going to discontinue it. I bought up enough (more than enough) for making a sweater at that time, literally for a song (and if you've ever heard me sing, you know how CHEAP that is!), when it was on sale at JoAnn. 

It has sat untouched, in a plastic bag, all this time. I pulled it out the other day to swatch that basketweave scarf sample, and picked it up to continue to try to figure out this v-neck. Yarn snobs, cover your eyes: That is NICE yarn, and so cheap. I wonder if it pills something awful, but I don't care. I'm determined to make a sweater out of it. It knits up soooo nicely, and flows over the fingers like butter. Once we become yarn snobs, we forget these things. And sometimes the snobby super-expensive yarn turns out to be nothing but expensive, saggy, stretched out, pilly crap that did nothing but eat a hole in your retirement account. (Right, Sandy?)

There is even an Aran sweater pattern on the damn ball band, and it looks like a nice one (though it takes a high-power microscope to read it). I'm going to make it. Screw the snobs!

Inventing a Sweater

I do realize I tried this once before and it didn't go very far, though that was 100% the fault of the yarn, and not me. At least I'm not taking responsibility. The pattern itself was working out perfectly, but the yarn was just one big brown blotchy mess. I do intend to make that top again someday soon, once I find the right, non-blotchy, yarn. 

But here I am in that place again. I have zero aspirations of becoming a designer, but designers just don't seem to design what I want most of the time. I'm not much of a lace girl. I'm not a puffy girl (well, I have my puffy days, but I mean I don't like puffy sweaters). I'm not a boxy-sweater girl, nor a drop-shoulder girl, nor a lot-of-embellishments girl, nor a too-short-too-severe-hips-and-waist girl (a la Kim Hargreaves patterns. I love her patterns, love her sensibilities, but my body does not match them. Does anybody's?)  

Yes, I realize I could modify patterns, but why? Why not just make my own simple sweaters the way I like them, then?

Why can't designers read my mind? And WHY aren't they all standing in LINE waiting to design something especially to my taste? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I hardly EVER knit, and I sound like I'm impossible to please. Sigh. I'm really not. I have just figured out what I like, and I have a damn hard time finding it sometimes.

Anywayyyyyyyy. My daughter wants me to knit her a sweater that is "wearable to work." That's about all she gave me to go on a while back when I asked her. She is not working in Manhattan anymore, as she was when she made that statement. She is attending law school now. 

But long story short, I sort of had to get out my magic decoder ring in order to try to figure out exactly what she meant. The opposite of me, she seems to eschew cardigans, though if I asked her about that, she would probably not have an opinion to express about it. I have to just look at what she buys herself over and over again, and wears over and over again, and go from there. Basically, that is a v-neck, close-fitting little sweater. In this respect, I realize, she is exactly like me:  I have determined what is "my style," and I, too, buy and wear the same basic shapes over and over again. I totally get that. But that is not to say that I won't crash and burn with this attempt at what I think is exactly what she likes. 

Having done a quite exhaustive search of Ravelry patterns and all the books I own, and getting too tired from looking for what I have pictured in my own mind and finding nothing of the kind (or if I do find it, it's in the wrong gauge, or there is some other problem with it, such as it's in a book that I don't have and I want to start YESTERDAY), I just decided to wing it. 

I adore the baby cables that Thea put on the Golden Vintage Cardigan (Ravelry link), so I'm using those. And the rest is just a simple wearable slim-fitting pullover sweater in a luscious stretchy cotton yarn with a v-neck and cuffs embellished with that same little cable, to my daughter's measurements. I hope. Well, this is supposed to be for Abigail, but I sort of hope it turns out too big for her. Maybe I'm figuring the math wrong. Heh. KIDDING! I hope it's just right for her and I hope she loves it. Or if she doesn't, that she GIVES IT BACK TO ME. Oh, I slay myself. I do. Anyhoo.....

Oh, how I love knitting with Calmer (this is my third garment in this yarn, and if anybody has a sweater's worth of it in the color "Tree," I'll take it off your hands. I am in the market for it, but not at full price!), and this color is soooo restful on the eyes. It's called "Pool," and that's just what it feels like. (There is really a touch more yellow/green -- just a touch -- in the real thing. Like robin's egg blue, I'd call it.)

That is the progress for one evening of planning and knitting, and it was pure bliss. I'm knitting it in the round up to the armholes, and it's flying! Sorry, Mom's Shetland Fair Isle.....I needed something soft and smooth to knit for a while. Don't worry -- I will finish you someday. 

Had my almost-weekly dinner and knitting with Joan last night, and made some additional progress. Am well into the waist shaping now....

 ...and did my first-ever Russian join. It was fantastic, and you seriously can't tell where ball one ends and ball two begins! 

Doesn't that sound a bit racy? 

323. A Great Big Swatch, or: Learning to Trust My Instincts

Oy. 

Some people got me scared. One person commented on my blog recently that she's been swatching this same yarn for a long time. She's been carrying it around in her purse, and fondling it for its lovely softness.  She also said, however, "It grows.  A lot," and linked me to her Flickr photo. Gulp.

But then I looked at the photo, and to me it appears that the swatch on the right has been pinned rather severely.  I assumed that if the yarn was just simply left to dry naturally, rather than pinned into the size it stretches into when wet, it would dry true to size. 

Still, it worried me. I'm knitting a nice sweater (I hope) from this yarn, and I'm investing a lot of time in a piece that I want to turn out well.

Then I was knitting on my sweater at Gale's gathering the other day, and someone asked me what the yarn was.  I told her (it's Jo Sharp Silkroad DK tweed in the color Boheme.), and I said, "It's just gorgeous! I love it!"  She said, "You're the first person I've heard who likes it."

Gulp.  Double gulp.

I ask her why.

She tells me she knew a woman who knit a sweater from it, the sweater came out gorgeous, she stopped by the shop for her to take a photo of it, then went to the movies.  Two hours later, according to the story, she comes back and says, "I want you to see this sweater."  It had grown several inches, she tells me.  She says it was misty at the time, and the sweater had gotten damp, and that that person had tried everything, even putting it in the dryer, and never could get that sweater back to its original size.  It kept on growing so it was the size of Texas by the end of the story. The person cut the sleeves off and reknit it, and it still kept growing.  It was The Story of the Incredible Growing Sweater, with a foreword by Stephen King. What a nightmare.

Well, I tell you.  I've been having issues with my blood pressure, and if that wouldn't drive it up, I don't know what would.

I wanted to just plain chuck that sweater and that yarn out the window.  All my effort and planning and careful knitting for naught?!

But my friend Terry is a master knitter, and she recently knit a sweater from this yarn.  I saw this sweater, admired it, and touched its gorgeousness.  I said to myself, "If there was something wrong with this yarn, Terry would have never knit anything in it."  I felt confident of that. I know she DID write that the fibers had relaxed a teeny bit after two solid days of wear.  But look how incredibly gorgeous that sweater was, after two days' wear at a fiber festival, no less. 

But that was only a little bit of comfort.  Why?  Because unlike me, I know Terry is an obsessive swatcher.  I know it was possible that Terry had swatched and reswatched that yarn, and washed that swatch and put it through its paces so she could do the math to make sure her finished garment, after being washed and worn, if it were going to stretch, would not stretch all OUT of shape, but INto shape.

I looked online for reviews of this yarn and came up with nothing. I found a glowing review of its sister yarn, Jo Sharp Aran Tweed, but not the DK weight.  And I certainly did not come up with any negative blog posts -- or really anything else, for that matter -- about this yarn. 

So I worried.  And I looked at my sweater on the needles.  And I worried some more.  And I knitted a bit more, and then I worried again.  And I said, "This is stupid. There's only one way to find out."

So I took it off the needles and put the live stitches onto a piece of kitchen cotton yarn. 

I measured it fresh off the needles, dry and smoothed out on my blocking tiles, but not stretched. I love my blocking tiles, by the way.  They have flocking on the surface that has just the right amount of grab, and they are a nice solid off-white.  I got them here.

It's a bit of a challenge to get a straight measurement of a piece knitted in the round and unblocked, so it appears to be on a bit of an angle, but I came up with 23.5 inches.  This is just slightly less than I'd like this sweater to be.  So far so good, then, because there is some stretching room, but not excessive bagginess.

I measured the length, smoothed out by my hands, but unblocked and unstretched:

12 inches.

I checked the knitting gauge.

20 stitches per 4 inches

30 rows per 4 inches. 

Exactly as per the ball band.

Then I took the piece and, following the washing instructions on the ball band, I put it in warm water with a nice squirt of Eucalan lavender, as I use for all my wool and silk knits.  I let it soak for half an hour.  Then, again as per the washing instructions, I rinsed it in cooler water.  I handled it gently, as I do all my knits. I spun it dry(ish) in my washing machine, and I took it back to the blocking tiles.  I laid it out and smoothed it gently, without stretching anything, as I would with any of my el primo knitwear (It's all el primo. I have great reverence for the knits -- especially the handknits.). 

The fabric looked gorgeous even wet, and I sensed that there was little, if any change, and that there would be minimal change in the measurements, but I measured it anyway.

23.75 inches wide and

12.5 (and a fraction) long. Virtually the same as when dry...well, very minimal change, anyway, and I expected that change to be even more minimal, or nonexistent, once it dried.

I let it dry without pinning or stretching it, and I measured it when dry. Absolutely perfect.  So soft, so lovely, and just the right gauge.  I think it will be a wonderfully wearable sweater, assuming I ever finish it.  It's now back on the needles and I am happily knitting away again.

All This Loosening Up Is Making Me Tense

Well, I've gone and done it.  I've started my first "Big Girl" mittens.  What I mean by that is knitting something beyond stockinette and garter.  Colorwork.  Stranded.  Charts.

Scares the bejesus right out of me.

I'm not so big on going slow.  There is exactly one thing in life that I like to take slow.  You know what I mean.  Yes, that. Everything else:  FAST.  I type fast, I steno fast, I talk fast, I eat fast, I drive fast, I shower fast, I walk fast, I learn fast.  Well, on that last one?  Maybe not so fast anymore. 

So here is the cuff swatch cuff swatch of my Frostrosen mittens.

I have some major tension issues going on here.  I am a tight knitter and the whole idea of floats?  Weird.  In my mind, my take-no-prisoners Yankee no-nonsense way of thinking, they should be TIGHT FLOATS.  Loose floats, although they go against my grain, I'm learning are way better.  And I'm so new at knitting with the left hand that I'm slow.  And see the above paragraph.  I don't get slow.  Slow is painful.  Most of the time.  (Also see above.)  And then the pattern?  It's very good.  However, it doesn't tell me what to do with that garter band in the beginning, and yet it doesn't show in the photo/drawing of the mitten on the pattern.  Am I to understand that it gets hemmed somehow?  It just says do the six repeats of the garter at the beginning and drops it.  I can't find anywhere in the pattern that it tells me to hem it.  Am I supposed to hem it?  Help me out here. 

Anyhoo, I think this is going to end up being the swatch, because my gauge in the beginning is way too tight.  And painfully, slowly, I have finally figured out that in order to get gauge on the called-for needles, I will have to change my knitting style to LOOSIE-GOOSIE, which is nothing but SLOW and PAINFUL pour moi.  I also realized that I wanted the white (ivory, really) to pop, and therefore I figured out that the white needed to be in my right hand (what's THAT all about?!). 

I do love the color scheme and I will grudgingly admit that this kind of knitting is a RUSH.  So.  'nuff said.  I want the mittens to be really nice.  So therefore, it's a SWATCH.  I'll start over, now that I think I'm getting the hang of it.  Slow.  Painful.  And yet, a RUSH. 

See how flexible I can be? 

SPEAKING OF FLEXIBLE, The Other Rachel H. is getting a tad bit nervous.  We've all done a wonderful job on her drive for hats for Christmas presents for all the students at her school, but we have not yet come within close range of her goal.  She had 118 hats as of this morning (Sunday), and needs 300-325.  If you have hats or headbands (she says many of the kids might even prefer cool headbands) that you can spare or can whip out quickly and send to her, please consider it.  (acrylics or superwash are preferred)  If you could let her know how many you're sending so that she can keep a running count, that would also help alleviate her anxiety.  As she says, "I just don't EVER want to look in the eyes of an 8 year old and tell him/her, 'I'm sorry, there is nothing for you.'" 

The size she's looking for is child large/adult small.

Her email address is theprocrastiknitter[at]yahoo[dot]com.

I have dipped into my charity knitting pile and have diverted a few items from my Dulaan box and my local homeless shelter drive to send to Rachel instead.  She is coming down to the wire for when she needs her things, and I have time to knit replacements for my other favorite causes.  I hope to also be able to put in a headband or two before I mail the package tomorrow. 

Flexibility can be a good thing, I'm learning.

I think I'll be away from the blog and email for a few days, because of the holiday work craziness of which I have spoken previously.  It's a good thing I'm a grinch.  Grinches don't need to worry about being busy over the holidays.  Right?  Flexible, flexible, flexible.....

Weekend Exercise

Here is another hat done for the Soaring Eagles Project.  I used this hat to practice color work*, using my left hand, and also to practice knitting Continental. 

*yes, I added a comma, because those are two separate things -- I need practice in both color work generally and in using my left hand for the color work

I found that I can knit Continental, and I can maintain gauge.  I can see how it could be faster to knit that way, but I need practice.  After a while, I got back to throwing, and I can still knit a lot faster that way.  I'm not sure I will ever be completely comfortable with that left hand -- I am very right-hand dominant.  My keyboarding, one would think, would help with the ambidexterity, and that may prove to be true in the end -- with practice.  I also found that I can manage one strand in the left hand and one in the right for color work, and I can definitely see the value in doing so.  I will keep on practicing. 

This hat will fit better than the first one I sent to the project.  Note to self and to anyone who is reading:  Ann Budd's hat patterns are HUGE.   They must have been written in the era of Big Hair, so as not to squish down one's 'do, or something. 

This one is made of Mission Falls 1824 Wool.  The pattern is a variation on Susan's Amber hat pattern.  The colorwork design is different than Susan's. *cough* (adopt Peewee Herman's voice:  I meant to do that.)

And when it came to the crown, I decided to do a spiral-decreased top and add a pompom.   I'm especially fond of the raised ridge effect above and below the colorwork.