In Defense of Swatching

Most knitting patterns (and knit designers) highly encourage the knitting of a gauge swatch - that little piece of knitted pattern that will tell you how many stitches and rows are needed to make the finished piece the right size. From the swatch, the knitter can adjust needle size, yarn type, number of stitches or rows, or even tension to ensure that the piece turns out exactly as the designer expected.

Photo stolen from www.tricksyknitter.com - awesome blog!

Swatching is particularly important when making something that needs to fit - a sweater or skirt, for example. However, you can usually get away without swatching a scarf or hat. Adjustments can be made while knitting to correct any minor size issues and, frankly, these are not items that generally need to "fit".


Because I don't, generally, knit clothing that needs to fit, I always found swatching to be an unnecessary chore. Honestly, I've probably only swatched a few things - most recently the pattern that Cassandra and I designed for What (Else) Would Madame De Farge Knit?. Swatching was necessary there because we had three people test knitting and we needed to ensure some consistency in the size.


So... there was one reason to swatch: to ensure gauge while designing your own pattern.


Then, almost by accident, I stumbled on reason number two for swatching - figuring out if you like a particular yarn for a pattern.

Not my actual swatches. Kudos to whomever did them.

Now, truth be told, I was testing various yarns and needles sizes in order to create a particular "look" for another thing we're designing. However, it occurred to me that I could do this with EVERY pattern. How many times have I picked a yarn because I loved it and a pattern because I loved it, but then disliked the finished product because it didn't drape right or the fabric was too stiff?  How easy would it have been to spend some time knitting up a bit of the pattern in a few different yarns to see which one I liked best? Just so you know... I'm totally doing this from now on.


I'm sure that some of you seasoned knitters out there are chuckling at my sudden swatching enlightenment. You know I still consider myself, at best, an intermediate knitter. I'm constantly stumbling on this kind of stuff - ideas that make knitting easier or better in some way. And I'm always surprised when someone says, "Oh yeah... I've been doing that for years!"


So, hopefully, there are a few of you out there who, like me, didn't give swatching its due and will now, at least, see some value in the process.


- Alex

Mad Skillz, Baby!!

Nearly seven years ago, my first niece was born. At that point, I'd been knitting, sporadically, for a few years. I knew how to knit, purl, increase and decrease but I was, for all intents and purposes, a beginner. However, the promise of a new baby in the family inspired me to knit a baby blanket. I knew my sister-in-law would be thrilled with a handmade gift for her first child.

Cassandra gave me the pattern. It came from a magazine and had been a first place winner in a Knit and Crochet Crafts contest. The appeal of the pattern was that the finished product would look the same front and back and it only called for knit and purl stitches. The scary part was that it was a six row repeated pattern which, at the time, seemed very complicated. 

 I bought a gorgeous peach colored cotton and set to work. While on the third skein of yarn, I made a mistake in the pattern. Being a beginner, I had no confidence or skill for fixing problems in my knitting so I took the blanket to my local yarn shop and begged some help. Unfortunately, I soon found myself facing the same problem again. I'm sure I mis-counted my rows or something but I couldn't fix it. My niece was born with her baby blanket about one-third done.

The unfinished project went into limbo.

Less than two years later, my sister-in-law was pregnant with her second child. The forgotten project was trotted out and I took it to my new knitting group, the very first time I went to a meeting, to beg some more help. Someone ripped out a bunch of it and showed me where to start in the pattern again. I probably got another dozen rows done before I screwed it up again. Too embarrassed to admit that I couldn't correct my mistake, the blanket went back in the closet.

My niece at three. The blanket had been abandoned twice at this point.

Fast forward to this past weekend and my family reunion in upstate NY. I didn't have any summer knitting projects but wanted something to take on the plane. Knowing that I was going to see my sister-in-law and now-seven-year-old niece, I thought it would be funny to take the blanket to show them. Since I hadn't looked at it in five years, I also figured I might have gained enough skill to actually tackle the corrections on my own.

I broke out the old project and was thrilled to see that the color still appealed to me and the cotton felt okay against my hands in the summer heat. I was surprised to see that the work was on metal needles as I haven't used metal in years and generally dislike the way they knit. Then I unfolded the dreaded pattern that had given me such heartache. Two things struck me right away - I was using the original copy of the pattern (something I'd never do now for fear of spilling tea on it or losing instructions from wear on the folds) and the margins were marked with all these hieroglyphics that I'd used to keep track of where I was in the pattern. These were sure signs of what a novice I was when I'd worked this project in the past.

novice tracking method

folds = indecipherable instructions

Then I started trying to decipher my mistake. The Alex of today - a solidly intermediate knitter - is able to count stitches based on the pattern (purl bumps versus knit stitches are obvious to my eye now) and even look back a number of rows to find a problem. She can also rip out rows without having a complete heart attack.

It took me two tries to find and correct my mistake. At first, I simply counted my previous rows and determined where I needed to pick up the pattern. Turned out that wasn't right and the pattern was, essentially, reversed. So, I ripped back to a point that I knew to be the last pattern row (row number six) and then, before knitting the next row (pattern row number one), I looked at the work and visualized how the knitting would appear if I knitted that pattern row. It seemed to be right, so I forged ahead. And it was right. As were the subsequent rows.

Still a work in progress

Of course, I'm hyper-sensitive to making sure I'm working the right pattern row so I'm constantly checking to make sure I haven't veered off track. So far, so good.

The thing I find most interesting is how far I've come with my skills. Five years ago, I had no idea how to fix the problems with this project - looking at the pattern and work in progress was like trying to read Greek (which I don't do, obviously). Today, I understand the pattern and the completed work in an entirely different way. It also helps that I'm not afraid to deconstruct what's wrong and rebuild it.

Progress is an amazing thing. I have an entirely new perspective on my abilities as a result of this experience and I'm thrilled that I'm finally going to finish this damn blanket.

Footnote: I told the story to my sister-in-law who thought it was hilarious. I also showed my niece who a) LOVED the blanket and still wants it and b) wants to learn to knit now.  I taught her how to do a knit stitch and there are about twenty stitches in the blanket that were done by her hand. Yea!!

- Alex

Knitting 101

One of the most wonderful things about knitting is that, with a two basic stitches (knit and purl) and a couple of simple techniques, myriad patterns can be achieved. There's so little to actually learn and so many variations that it's kind of mind-boggling.

The two stitches just mirror one another. As you're going down a row, if you "knit" a stitch, you place a bump of yarn on the side facing away from you. If you "purl" the same stitch, the bump goes in the front, on the side you can see. These little bumps and indentations, done in a particular order, will create a pattern.

Garter Stitch is made by knitting every row:

Stockinette Stitch is made by knitting one row and purling the next, alternating throughout the fabric:

Seed Stitch is made by alternating your stitches - knit one, purl one - across a row and then doing the opposite on the next row - purl one, knit one - then repeating these two rows throughout the fabric.

Moss Stitch is made by alternating your stitches - knit one, purl one - across a row, repeating this for the second row then reversing the stitch pattern - purl one, knit one - across rows 3 and 4. Then repeating these four rows throughout the fabric.

It's deceptively simple.

Every knitter has their favorite patterns, and I'm no exception. For me, moss and seed stitch are very appealing. I recently started doing eyelets which requires making "holes" in your pattern by knitting two stitches together. Also, one of my crafty resolutions for this year was to do my first cable project - like the cables you see on sweaters. This is a very interesting technique that requires taking stitches off your needles and picking them up again later to place them "over" the other stitches.

When I attended the Crafting for Democracy at the Madison Capitol building, I made friends with a lovely woman named Colleen. She was knitting a pattern I'd never seen before and that I instantly fell in love with. For some reason, this pattern really sang to me.

"Colleen's Pattern" is a four row sequence. Row one - knit all the way across the row. Row two - knit one, slip one (slip the stitch, without knitting or purling it, to your right-hand needle) all the way across the row. Row three - knit all the way across the row. Row four - slip one, knit one all the way across the row. Then, of course, you repeat this four-row sequence throughout the fabric.

And this is what you get:

"right" side

"wrong" side

The best part of this pattern, in my opinion, is that both sides are pretty - even though the one side is supposed to be the "wrong" side.

Right now, I'm just making a scarf but I'll probably make something more impressive with this pattern at some point. It's just so gorgeous. If I do, you can bet you'll be seeing pictures of it here.

- Alex