Swatching

Oopie loves dripping water

Last night I had to re-shoot the video tutorial for the hooded cowl, and had planned to do the editing as well. My cat wasn’t okay with this. He wanted some attention, and I didn’t want to ignore him. (He’s an older guy, so when he begs for attention, I usually give in, as he doesn’t ask for much.)

So, I pulled out some yarn and worked on a swatch to knit up the stitch pattern sequences for the sweater. This I could do sitting next to my cat, and I caught up on back episodes of Dunkelgrün at the same time. (I find Anna to be charming.)

Fizzy Water Stitch, felted

This new swatch I’m doing as a mitered square, so I can felt it and give to a friend to use as a trivet. Here’s a previous attempt at a mitered square using this stitch pattern. (I didn't get the proportions right for this one, but now I know what to do.) I find it's a nice way to practice a stitch, and I really like it felted too. In fact, the gradation in color inspired the gradations I'll use in the sweater.

I had planned to combine two different slipped-stitch patterns (fizzy water stitch in two versions and the slipped garter stitch), but

Slipped Garter Stitch in Split Cowl

doing this swatch confirmed that this was a bad idea. One looks like ribbing and the other looks like garter stitch, and so they can’t transition nicely from one to the next. Just as I was putting my things away for the evening, I came upon a solution, which I’m excited to try. I’ll do that tomorrow after video-editing.

Last night's yarn barf

I wasn't planning to show the swatch because it looked like "yarn barf" to me. But then I realized how helpful it would be to have a record of it so I could see that the final result didn't just appear out of thin air, but from lots of doing and redoing. So, here it is, in its ugliness. It does not help that I chose yarn intended for felting and that the thick-and-thin yarn is terrible for swatching. Not a brilliant idea, but I want to be able to felt the finished swatch.

Mini sweater

This shows just how very un-linear the design process is: Something I thought was settled was most definitely not, and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to work because my cat wanted attention. In fact, he helped my design process but forcing me to do something unplanned. I think it’s interesting that designing this sweater in miniature did not expose this problem with the stitch pattern transition. Note to self: Don’t test patterns with black yarn!

I had planned to stripe the sleeves rather than applying the slipped garter stitch pattern, and now I will need to devise another idea for the sleeves, something that pairs better with the slipped ribbing pattern. So, another "problem" to solve.