Fever Dreams
So I seem to have lost a week. Some time weekend before last, I thought to myself 'hmm, I have a bit of a sniffle, perhaps I'll lie down for a moment.' Then yesterday I dragged my stinking carcass out of bed, blinked, grunted, and wondered what the hell happened to the intervening week. That's a slight exaggeration, but not much. I more or less did the bare minimum necessary to be considered a functional adult for the last nine days. Eat, shower, feed the cats, mind the blog. That's about it. Alas, The Boy also got the same strain [...]
Swatch…Bare Naked
I've been a fan of Anne's work for just about as long as I've been knitting. She has an aesthetic and style that really stands out, and it's always easy to spot one of her designs! So when I heard she'd turned her talent to making yarns, I was excited to try them. I had great fun swatching four of the yarns up (click any of the pictures for bigger versions). Anne's new yarns, and my new book, seemed to offer a perfect opportunity for me to talk a bit about a subject of interest to most knitters, yarn substitutions! [...]
Really Truly
Once in a while, I get a message from someone saying their hat or sock or mitt ended up a surprising size. I know how disappointing this can be, and I always feel bad for folks when this happens. I usually write back and ask if they got gauge when they swatched. Nine times out of ten, they didn't swatch. Now I know swatching can feel like a waste of time. I totally understand the urge to just start knitting. But all I can say is that the more I knit, the more I realize just how much time is [...]
Today’s Lesson
You know how all the instructions in every knitting book ever strongly encourage you to block your swatches? Yeah. I'm here to remind you of the same thing. This time with a demonstration. You see, I'm working on a little cowl. It's a lovely fabric, open without being lacy, structured without being stiff. I'm rather taken with it. The yarn was new to me (Handmaiden's Silk Twist), so of course I swatched. And because I'm lazy and only want to knit it once, I blocked my swatch. It's a good thing I did, because the swatch grew by about 50% [...]
Back On The Needles
The drought is over. After my unaccustomed knitting holiday, I finally got some yarn on the needles last night. Of course you will have to take my word for it, because what I knit was a swatch. Well actually a couple of swatches. More than that, they are swatches for a proposal for someone else's project. That means they must remain secret. That also means doing a real and proper swatch. A full on, knit it, *decide 'huh, that part would be better if I did this other thing,' rip it, reknit it with this new idea incorporated, repeat from [...]
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