Swatching

I'm currently working on some magazine samples which I can't really blog about so I've not had a lot to say here. I am full of ideas for self-published patterns but I'm struggling to carve out time to work on them whilst balancing my day job and my magazine work (and the need to sleep from time to time). I definitely need to slow down in at least one part of my work and at the moment self-publishing new patterns is taking a back seat.

Where I have been able to find some time I have been doing the occasional swatch. I've been playing around with texture a lot at the moment and have been starting to bring colours and textures together as I learn new techniques. These swatches are in some no-name very bright wool and are adaptations of the Quilted Lattice stitch on Knitting Fool.

I have an idea in mind for a new pattern using 2 colours of heavy laceweight with at least some colour/texture work. I don't think I'll be using the lattice work above, although I do like it a lot. Instead I've been looking at smocking stitches on the Knitting Daily video tutorials. I have a strong mental image of what I want to make and have the yarn already (two shades of Brown Sheep Legacy Lace from a Magpie Yarns special order) - just need to find the time!

Sometime you have to frog

I started making a hat a while back in beautiful Knitting Goddess sock yarn (Silver and Jace shades) using a colourwork pattern I'd designed myself (inspired by Etruscan metalwork) and that worked really well and it was all going really well until I fell over the maths. Knitting from the brim up and wanting to do decreases based on Pi, whilst maintaining the colourwork is easier said than done especially when the doer is numerically challenged me.

My head is not cone shaped ergo the hat should not be cone shaped. Even with the addition of a bobble (and yes I did consider a bobble and I am not a bobbly person) it would have looked lumpy, misshapen and weird. Not stylish, slightly Deco and generally fab. Definitely not that.

And so it sat on top of the stereo speaker (where my hats live until photographed) finished, with the ends woven in, some of my best and more even stranded colourwork on display knowing that it wouldn't fulfil it's destiny to warm a head this winter.

At least it sat there until this morning when I realised that if I frogged the hat I would have enough yarn easily for fingerless gloves and the beautiful Etruscan inspired colourwork would work on gloves too. And so, on my morning commute I frogged the hat (whilst standing by the bike storage area and probaly getting some funny looks). This is what is looks like now, ready to take the next step in towards becoming a fully functioning piece of knitwear:

The importance of swatches

Guilty confession time...I know I should swatch every time I knit something but I tend to have even tension and usually hit the gauge without needing to change up or down so when I'm knitting from a pattern I tend to wing it. I will swatch if it has a weird gauge for the type of yarn, or it's in an unusual stitch pattern but even then only if it's for something that needs to fit. I don't think I've ever swatched for a shawl pattern even though I know there are lots of reasons why it's useful to spend that time swatching and blocking. Here are some of the reasons:

1. It lets you know if the stitch pattern will make you lose the will to live (with frustration or boredom)
2. It lets you know if your tension is wonky or if you need to make adjustments to the pattern or pick a different size to meet your gauge
3. It can be an outward sign of inward stress that you've been ignoring
4. It's an opportunity to practice the stitch pattern/s, see how they flow together, and find out if they block differently
5. It lets you know if your yarn will work with the pattern which is particularly helpful when you're substituting yarns which I normally am

All that being said I still rarely swatch. The only time I remember swatching was as a relatively new knitter making a cardigan in Jaeger Roma. I swatched, came out bang on gauge, and then I picked up the wrong needle and before you know it I had a gauge square with perfect tension and a cardigan that was a size too small (also I learnt my lesson about knitting in pieces and not being able to try as you go). That cardigan has looked at me reproachfully for the last couple of years until I sent it to a new life with a smaller knitter in Sweden.

Even when I started designing I would do all the maths, sketches, pattern write-up and then knit the whole piece with much frogging, note making, and re-knitting. This state of affairs continued until the last few weeks when trying to put together multiple pattern submissions meant there was simply not enough time in the day to knit the whole piece and I rediscovered the joy of the swatch. As you can see I now have a small and growing collection:

The yarns here are (clockwise from top left) Wollmeise 100% Superwash, some generic 4ply wool of unknown provenance, I think DB Rialto 4ply striped with Noro Kureyon Sock, Rowan Creative Focus Worsted, RYC Cashsoft Aran and on the top Yarn Yarn Crannog

This little heap tells me a few things:

1. I don't have an extensive palette of colours
2. I need to find something to do with the swatches
3. I seem to be on a texture binge at the moment
4. I really don't like knitting with alpaca

Closer examination of two of the swatches reveals more about my 4th point. 

I had in my head a very clear idea of a design - shape, pattern, what to wear it with (even the shoes) and colour. For some reason, even though alpaca makes me sneeze and sheds so much that my knitting chair looks like it's been attacked by a moulting Fraggle, I thought and alpaca blend would be perfect. I'm not sure what I was think but it definitely had something to do with the alpaca sales pitch of warm, light and soft yarn. So I hunted on the great plains of the internet for an alpaca blend in the perfect colour and found the yarn on the right which is Rowan Creative Focus Worsted in New Fern. Now it turns out that I have knit with this yarn before under a previous name (Nashua Creative Focus) but I didn't realise it at the time. So I knit a swatch full of lovely cables and moss stitch and it didn't look too bad...and then I blocked it and like my hair on a humid day it fluffed up and obscured the pattern. It is soft and light and looks like a bowling green with a moss problem but it's not going to work for this pattern. Back to the hunt which took me all the way to a part ball of RYC Cashsoft Aran - smooth, plied, bouncy, round, soft and full of woolly goodness and look at the difference in the pattern definition - perfect! The colour is all wrong for my mental image but since I also don't own the right shoes I can come to terms with that. 

And the lesson of the day is...know your yarns and pick the right yarn for the right job, and don't forget to swatch and check. I'm not sure what the Creative Focus is right for but there must be something...any suggestions?

My design process (such as it is)

Various patterns are in various stages of testing:

• Pie Crust Shawl -  being tested 
• Waterhouse fingerless mitts - awaiting revisions and tech editing
• Tortile beaded hat - awaiting revisions and tech editing

Although the testing period for the mitts and hat ended on April 10th I've been very busy at work and personally with the shock of my Dad having a heart attack midweek so for obvious reasons I've had to put these on hold temporarily. That doesn't stop me thinking ' what next?' whilst on the bus to the hospital or sketching out possible designs whilst sitting with my Mum so I thought I'd try to map out my design process over a few blog posts given that I won't have much time for actual knitting and designing.

1. Inspiration:

I get inspired by lots of things: interesting colours, shapes in nature or architecture, textures and patterns. I'm rarely inspired by existing patterns or by things I see in shops - I don't seem to have the urge to recreate or reverse engineer things. A while ago I started working with the lovely Jo of Dodoknitz who has recently started an online business dyeing yarn. I had a very vague idea for a circular shawl incorporating lace and cables and I knew I wanted it to be green. Not just any green but a vivid late Victorian green - somewhere between 'yallery-greenery' and acid green. So this is what I sent Jo:

As well as the colours you'll see some hints as to the textures I'm going for in the design,  particularly the twisted lattice columns and the fan detail. Given that I'm planning a design with lots of texture I wanted a yarn that would give good stitch definition and would block well for lace. So working with Jo I settled on a heavy laceweight (a new base from Tall Yarns) in a silk/ merino blend. And this is what Jo sent me:

which is just lovely. Now because I am considering a cabled, knitted on border which will just eat yarn I decided I needed two skeins so Jo dyed two more for me (so it would be the same dye lot) and they are even more vibrant:

My pictures don't do them justice, they are wonderfully, virulently green.

So now I have yarn, a general idea and some rough sketches so I need to start plotting out the detail and DOING MATHS which will take quite a while. Updates to follow at a later date