Annie Knits

Because That's How I Roll!

Last week, I finished two kids' sweaters and a scarf.  I also put a sweater for me (Gisela) into hibernation, hoping that the hibernation faeries will make it fit better.  Actually, I've knit a series of short rows onto the front of the thing, giving it kind of a handkerchief front and I need to block it again, since it's all sewn together.  But I just can't face the fact that it might not fit the way I want it to.  So.  Hibernation faeries, please grant me this wish:  when I pull this sweater out again, block it and finish the fronts and the collar, make it fit.  : )

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Dyeabolical Sops I got from Rachel in July have been grumbling at me to knit them up already.  

I looked and looked for a cabled sweater pattern.  I swatched and surfed Ravelry.  Nothing caught me until late Wednesday night.  Pairing this yarn with the wrong pattern would be very sad.  Disastrous really, and I had to get it just right. 

So, what do I choose?  A sweater pattern from an old book with only 4 projects on Ravelry and no pictures of the whole thing knit up, of course.  'Cause that's how I roll.  

Gladys Thompson's book was originally published in 1969, and the title didn't include a reference to Aran sweaters.  When reprinted in the late '70s, the Aran reference was added.  The book explores the knitting of working men's sweaters in the British Isles (Guernseys or ganseys and Jerseys) as well as the later, less utilitarian Aran sweaters made popular in the '20s.  There are pictures and loosely written patterns, mostly in one size.  What's not to like?

I'm knitting the Print o'the Hoof Gansey pattern, and it'll make up into a 40 inch sweater.  Other's have commented that Aran weight yarn knit at this gauge makes for a lovely, waterproof sweater worthy of bike rides and outer wear.  This Polwarth silk blend yarn lets me block that out to more like 42 inches and knits up into a much lighter fabric which will be fine for indoor wear.  Probably perfect.  ; )

The problem with the book, and frankly why I hadn't knit from it before, is the fact that the pattern repeats are written out rather than charted.  I can't knit this way.  I get lost in the verbiage.  That whole page is 16 rows of knitting written out stitch by stitch.  Makes my eyes cross.

I took 40 minutes early Thursday morning -- Bacon still gets up really early, like 4 a.m. early -- and voila.  This is a really simple pattern and the cables and traveling purls and welting line up in easy repeats.  It'd have taken me days to figure this out from those paragraphs in the other picture.  The chart freed me from the pattern completely in a way the written words couldn't have done.  Whew. 

I'm about 10 inches in and I need 19 before doing the set in sleeve decreases.  Piece of cake.  

This picture is a pretty good representation of Rachel's genius.  Remember, this yarn is a mistake.  Yes, Rachel used about 2500 yards of a Polwarth silk blend to wipe up a dye spill in her kitchen and then threw it in a dyepot, so the story goes.  The resulting grays and olives variegate slightly, but not enough to obscure the pattern.  Makes a traditional piece more modern, no?  

Last night, we attended a party in the neighborhood called Martinis at the Mansion in support of a local park.  Notice the plural there?  Martinis?  I had a plural number of basil Mojito martinis.  Lucky for me, all that's on the calendar for me today is knitting on this sweater.  And maybe grilling a chicken later.  

Pairing

I've been thinking lately.  I have a large number of unfinished objects languishing in various bags and cubby holes around the house.  I think a lot of us do.  I wonder why.  It's not economical -- those UFOs are hogging up my needles and my stash space and, most especially my brain space.  I worry about them.  I wonder when I'll get back to them.  I ponder the yarn and pattern, having loved both enough to cast on for a project.

Eureka.  I think I've figured it out.  At least for myself.  Many of my UFOs are destined to be unsuccessful and on some level, my subconscious knows this and isn't letting me waste my time on them.  Most often, I think, it's an ill-conceived pairing of yarn to pattern.

Gisela probably falls into this category and I just haven't admitted this sorry fact to myself yet.

As a point of illustration, I have today's Finished objects.  Yum.

First up is a Wingspan scarf knit out of a new-to-me yarn by HiKoo and distributed by Skacel.  It's Timidity, a highly-textured wool/acrylic/nylon blend.  I used color number 3, a hot red and brown blend.  It knits up nubby and lacy and it's not what I'd call soft.

But pair it with a short-row pattern that lets its long color repeats stack up and swirl around?  Dayum.  I love this thing.  Even hubster, who generally has to be prompted to notice knitting triumphs, commented favorably on this scarf.  It's a statement piece.  

I have to admit that I started the scarf with trepidation.  I didn't particularly like the examples of it knit up in various variegated yarns on Ravelry.  I kept at it primarily because I wanted a garter stitch piece to work on at knit night.  But as the thing grew, I knew I was onto something, albeit unintentionally.  Yay me.

This pairing of my hand-spun yarn with Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket was intentional.  It's almost become what you'd call a traditional pairing.  Yarn spun from dyed roving often has this striping heathered quality and the BSJ is a pattern made to take advantage of the striping.

This roving was, I believe, a Romney wool.  It's a Hello Yarn club colorway, but I don't know which one.  It's luverly.  Once I make a hat from the rest of the yarn, I'll do the finishing (probably i-cord) and gift it to a newly adopted little guy at church.  

What do you think?  Are your unsuccessful (or maybe just uninspiring) projects often a result of bad pairings?  

Time Out!

A knit night friend is adopting a little girl who is 18 months old.  Such exciting times!  The baby shower was Saturday and I thought I'd not be able to attend as I had a sweater class to teach.   I sent in my RSVP as a maybe, hoping I'd be able to go anyway. 

When the class hadn't formed as of Thursday, it was time to start knitting for that baby shower! 

I bought the yarn, Anzula For Better or Worsted with a kid's sweater in mind as there are several in the chute, so to speak.  (Kids and sweaters as a matter of fact.)  It's a superwash merino blended with a little cashmere and nylon, all pulled together in a tight twist.  It's lovely stuff. (Sorry, non-Ravelers.  All the links are Ravelry today.  Just sose ya know.)

This sweater, A Pod of Cetaceans, has been on my favorite list for awhile.  You know when things work?

As of Saturday morning, I had gotten this far.  I'd have finished the darned thing if I hadn't had to rip back the body and reknit from the ribbing to the armpits due to fussiness over mixing the two balls of yarn.  Darned kettle dyed stuff -- even within dyelots, mix your balls of yarn.  How many times have I told customers this?  Every time I sell them kettle dyed yarn .. probably hundreds of times.  At least.  Did I do it myself?  No.  Did I pay for it?  Yes. 

Anyhoo... I took the sweater to the shower like this and then brought it home again.  Classy.

Come Sunday morning?  Time to cut this bad boy.

I used Eunny Jang's crocheted steek method, where you crochet a stabilizing chain up the sweater on either side of the stitch you plan to cut.  By the way, I learned, at Vogue Knitting Live, that Alice Starmore coined the word 'steek', which is Gaelic for 'gate', in an article she wrote about Fair Isle knitting in the '80's.  Like the 1980's.  I always thought it was some old Norwegian name for the process.  The stitches were always called 'cutting up stitches' before.  Now we've kind of verbed the noun, but the way to refer to the process is apparently to talk about cutting a steek or gate, rather than steeking (or gating).  A little aside there.

I turned the sweater inside out, so the bars I want to cut would be more prominent and I snipped away.  This is a pretty good view of the steek stitches, which were a knit, a purl, 8 knits, a purl and a knit.  Plenty to fold over for the placket.

All done.

This steek was a little dicier than usual for two reasons:  not so much colorwork where you kind of end up weaving the yarn together on the back of the sweater so it really holds together;  and superwash wool is slippery and doesn't want to hold together anyway.  All that stockinette in the body tends to want to unravel at the steek.  It's all fine now that the placket is tacked down good and tight.

All that was left to do was pick up and knit button bands and weave in the ends.  When the light's better later this morning, I'll snap a few finished product pictures.  

This is a sweater I'd knit again.  Quick and fun and very cute.

Which is a good thing, because there are three more little ones who need sweaters before the end of October.  

Gisela is practically done.  All but side seams and front plackets.  I'm afraid to try her on...  You knew that was going to happen.  I'm sure if she sits in a bag while I knit sweaters for these little ones, she'll be ready to behave when I take her out to work on her again.  

Next up, a BSJ out of handspun for another newly-adopted 18 month old.  Rachel inspired me.

More About the Sweater I Shouldn't Be Making

You know, Gisela.  I should be working on birthday presents, baby knitting, and the sweater for the class I'm teaching in September.  Instead, I'm working on a sweater that might or might not fit and that is knit on size 8 needles out of lace weight fiddly yarn.  Seriously.  

First, though a gratuitous dog picture.

Bacon is growing -- nearly 35 pounds from the 11 when we got him Memorial Day.  He's nearly 5 months old today.  He can ring the bell to go out, mind his invisible fence, sit, come, leave it, and lie down.  He loves smooshy beds and cow hoofs.  He barks not all all (yet), but growls when there is any kind of music outside in the neighborhood -- concerts, loud cars, etc.  

He's almost broken of his propensity to jump and "box" you with both of his front paws when he wants something.  I've caught myself using the old saw, "Use your words, Bacon!"  Toddler behavior apparently initiates that response in me regardless of species.

He won't be big like Sophie -- remember Sophie? -- and he likely won't get close even to Monte's 70 pounds.  

The vet thinks between 40 and 50 pounds in the end.  Not a lap dog.  Sorry, buddy.

Gisela's fronts, back, and one sleeve have been blocked to the size indicated in the pattern.  Not even aggressively.  But -- she doesn't drape to those numbers.  She stretches to them.

Hmm...  

I'm soldiering on with the second sleeve and thinking about how to get this sweater to fit as it's supposed to:  as a kind of light jacket.  It doesn't have buttons to hold it closed but what I think I have knit is a fitted cardigan with little or no ease which would need buttons to hold it closed.  Hanging open it would look too small.  

I think I'll have to knit a different shaped placket onto the fronts of the sweater.  Like a short row trapezoid type shape.  Or something.  Maybe just oblong stockinette triangles that will roll, but taper down beneath the bottom of the sweater, like ties.  I'll know better how the thing fits when I seam it.

It's the Luna that's holding the knit shape rather than conforming to the blocked shape, I think.  The pattern calls for a cottony linen yarn that holds no shape at all.  And I knit it in lace weight wool and silk held with a poly/paillette thread.  The wool/silk alone would hold a block I think.  So, in the end, what makes this sweater excellent is also making it maybe not fit.  

I say maybe because I haven't sewn the thing together yet, have I.  It could still fit the way I want it to in the end.  Magical thinking isn't just for politicians, now, is it?

Bacon sees what I did there.

Mmphhh!

Help.  I'm buried.  Under spinning, knitting, and rehab stuff.

It's fun and enervating and crazy.  Oh, and it was Holy Week last week, in case you missed it...

First up, one of my favorite details upstairs.  We found a tile treatment on Pinterest and duplicated it in the upstairs bath.  Dark aqua around the perimeter; aqua, putty, and white confetti drifting into all white as we got towards the middle.  It makes 1x1 tile something special.  The tile guy hadn't done it before, and he has photographed and sold the idea to two other customers... ; )  I should get a cut.

Tile and windows are done in the great room, and today there are 4 painters up and down puttying and then painting trim.

Progress continues apace.

There's a cute little shower in there.

These look big to me, but hubster says that when it's all painted to match, it'll look more balanced.

I've been spinning more than I've been knitting.

This yarn is 16 ounces of fingering weight yarn, spun from two different Hello Yarn club colorways:  the July '11 BFL/Silk blend called Night Gathers and the April '11 Targhee top called Sprout.  It is lovely.  The silk gave the yarn just a little sheen here and there and the blue/green/taupe/hot chartreuse color blending makes me pretty darned happy.  It'll be some kind of drape front cardigan... I thought perhaps Dahlia since it'll stripe nicely and that'd be nice in the medallion on the back of that sweater.  Who knows?

Also just off the wheel is this Dyeabolical club color called Sid Fishcious.  Named for her goldfish.  A quick, easy spin that netted me 8 ounces of fingering.  Plenty for socks.

Next up?  More Hello Yarn, in the new club colorway, a merino/bamboo 50/50 blend called Villain.  I have an older one to blend it with so I'll have enough for another sweater.  Also, this Blood Orange BFL/Firestar somehow followed me home after I yarn-monkeyed for Rachel (that's an Etsy link) yesterday.  Happens to me all the time.

I'm knitting another Vitamin D sweater, although I may change where the drapes hit my hips in the front.  I love the increases the designer used in this sweater.  And this yarn needed to be something sunny.

Don't you agree?  Yes, I'm taking quite a bit of ribbing as I knit this crazy neon thing (thanks to Rachel for dyeing the yarn for me even though she thought I was nuts).  And I have to hurry up and finish it as this color will only be au courant for like the next 15 minutes.  Surprisingly, I can actually wear this neonyyellowgreen close to my face -- I'm pinkish, not yellowish, so it works.  Makes me look tan in fact.  Probably I am tanning when I'm near this sweater.  I should likely wear sunblock.

Behind my sweater is a cute little vest I knit quickly for my neice -- it's a Noro cotton tape.  Forget the name of the yarn or the colorway.  I have a yellow zipper to sew into it and then I'll mail it off -- she can wear it this fall.

Otherwise, it's all paint colors and fabric and tile.  So fun, actually.  I'll try and keep you current in future.

 

Two on Tuesday: Two Ways to Deal With the Cold

Actually, I've willfully misinterpreted Carole's topic for today which is ten ways to deal with a cold.  I refuse to mention colds as there is such nastiness swirling around here and I've taken such measures to avoid it that I've got disinfectant hand cream coming out of my pores.  

Tonight I'll blog about how I deal with the cold, as in there is a huge cold front coming and it's going to get cold.  That cold.  I bet you can guess the nature of the contents of my post...

I may have blogged about the Christmas present Hubster got me last year -- 250 grams of Quiviut fiber.  I also may have blogged about spinning it into a light fingering weight 2-ply yarn.  I can't remember.

As the cold approached this fall, I thought I should finish the gloves I started out of this hand spun goodness last spring.  It didn't take long.  These suckers are soft and warm and decadent.  And they only weight 80 grams.  As such, my pair is in the works.  

I used Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns.  These gloves were knit on size 2 needles and I knit the man's large size.  Hubster likes them.

Also in the WIP finishing category is my Inspira cowl  (that's a Ravelry link).  

General Patton modeling knit wear again.  I know that the photo seems yellow, but the colors of the cowl read pretty true in this photo.  The yarn is a hand spun Spunky Eclectic colorway -- can't remember which one, but I spun it to maintain the long color repeats.  

I modified the pattern in that I decreased to give it some shoulder shaping.  I knit it on size 9 needles. 

It's rustic and thick and bright.  I kind of love it.

So, yeah, knitting is one way to deal with cold weather.  The other way?

You knew that was coming.   

I'll tell you one thing.  The way my CSA deals with the cold weather is to throw winter squash at us!  I have 2 Acorn, one Butternut, one Delicata, and a baking pumpkin.

Tonight I stuffed two kinds of winter squash with cornbread stuffing, because, to be perfectly honest, my family does not love winter squash.  It's ok as a vehicle for something else like stuffing, though. 

Cornbread Stuffed Winter Squash

• 2 winter squash, halved and seeded
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 ribs celery, diced
• 2 large cloves garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 T butter
• 10 leaves fresh sage, chopped
• 2 T Sherry
• 6 stale corn muffins, about 2 cups (you can use bread cubes that you dry a little in the oven instead)
• 1 1/2 c chicken stock

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Sautee onion, celery, and garlic in butter until soft.  Season with salt and pepper and add sherry.  Reduce slightly.  Add sage.
3. Stir muffin crumbs and chicken stock into vegetable mixture.  Let it absorb the liquid some.
4. Spoon the stuffing into the squash cavities, mounding it up carefully.
5. Bake until squash is cooked through, about an hour.  

I served this with buffalo meatloaf that I seasoned with some of the fresh sage and yukon gold potatoes.  Stick to your ribs food, I tell you.  

There is some stuffed squash left.  I'd call that lunch.

Sweaters That Are and Sweaters That Are Yet to Come... And a Scarf

Here is Remsen, finished and seamed and worn a few times.  I kind of love it and would have modeled it today if I hadn't just ridden to the local farmer's market and back.  I have bike-helmet-head. 

It's flattering and fun to wear.  The weight loss I've accomplished has made a difference in the fit, I'm sorry to say, but not a terrible one.  I'll still wear it.  

We finally got the yarn and the pattern in at the shop and it's generated some interest.  I practice full disclosure:  the pattern is good, the yarn is fiddly to knit with, the end result is worth it.  Oh, and I'll help you put the darned thing together if you so desire.

Next on the needles has been a 4 year old-sized sweater using the numbers from Ann Budd's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns.  I'm using five colors of odd ball sock solids that I had kicking around -- someone didn't want them for her sock blanket.

Here is the body of the sweater, up to the arm pits.  I've also got half a sleeve done.  The stripe sequence is counted using the Fibonacci Series of numbers (that's a Wikipedia link if you're not sure what the Fibonacci Series of numbers is.)  I saw a Fibonacci sweater years ago and I've always wanted to to one.  It appeals to the geeky find-hidden-meanings deconstructionist in me.  I do think that the spacing and sequence are appealing.

I also think that the sweater at this stage resembles the 4 year old for which it's intended, probably most 4 year olds actually.  

Darling but a lot of ends to weave in.

We took Dear Daughter to college last weekend and, so far, she's having a great time.  She's playing her trumpet in the pep band today during the school's first football game.  She told me that she's going to fake interest in the game if she has to.  Atta girl!  I got most of the knitting on this Hitchhiker scarf  (Ravelry link) done during the car ride to and from dropping her off.  It's Dyeabolical Bling sock yarn in the We're All Mad Here colorway.  It's really striking, I have to say.  Just as eye-searing and fun in person.  It's too bad that the bling doesn't show up in photography.

Next up?  This yarn jumped to the front of the queue somehow this week... in front the other yarn and pattern book I actually bought several weeks ago with an eye to holiday knitting.  Dangit.  

It's enough of Rachel's Carnivale colorway to do another sock yarn sweater.  I will decide which one soon.  Because I'm jonesing to knit with this stuff, you know?  

Close Only Counts ...

I know, I know, ...in horse shoes and hand grenades.  And after my recent post (perhaps more aptly named a rant) about getting gauge, I feel the need to 'fess up.  I did not knit a swatch before I started this sweater.  

There.  I've said it.  I measured my knitting after I started the back.  More to the point, I didn't wash the swatch I didn't knit either.  The horror.

My only excuse is that I didn't want to.  I usually get gauge and this tape is pretty stable.  Not good excuses, but they're mine.  Please do as I say, not as I do.

Here is Remsen.  Well, most of Remsen, I'm still working on one of the sleeves, but I couldn't wait to see if I'd gotten it right.  After a good, long soak in warmish water and dish soap, this cotton tape yarn relaxed some.  What it really did was grow width wise, a problem remedied by strong lengthwise pulling. 

So far, so good.  I tried to knit the body an inch or so longer than the pattern called for -- 11 1/2 rather than 10 inches here, check. And the width resolved itself in order stretch to the required length.  22 inches.  Good.

Hmm.  Arm openings are 10 inches rather than 9.  Hope I can ease in this stretchy fabric so that the sleeve fits the opening.  If not, I can do a few more increases on the sleeve.  Or pull back the neck.  We'll see in a few hours.

Here was the tricky part.  These pieces interlock to form the tied front of the sweater.  Those outside edges get folded in half and seamed to themselves and the resulting piece gets sewn to the sides of the back.  It works... as I've said before, I've helped 3 customers put this thing together.  An aside on seaming -- I bought smooth cotton yarn in the same color to seam.  No way I'm seaming with a thick and thin cotton tape.

The marvel is that these things resemble both the measurements on the schematic included in the pattern and each other.  The pattern said to make two, reversing the shaping of the second.  Really?  Can you see all that shaping?  It was not television knitting, I'm telling you.

So.  I'm waiting for the pieces to dry so that I can put them together.  Of course, we got like 17 inches of rain this afternoon, so the drying will take awhile.  I might even be able to finish the other sleeve. 

Another aside.  You wish I had Smellivision.  Dear Son is learning to cook bacon so that he doesn't have to wait for me to get up off the couch and make it for him.  He's got a whole package of thick cut bacon in a jelly roll pan on parchment paper in the oven at 400 for 15 or so minutes.  He's watching it like a hawk.  Dinner's in like an hour and a half -- too long to wait.  So, an entire package of bacon it is.  14-year-olds eat either nothing or everything.  Depending on the day.  Today is an everything day.

This and That

I've got medical stuff.  I've got fiber stuff.  Where to begin?

This is Remsen (that's a Ravelry link).  Well, it's the back of Remsen.  I've just cast on for one of the front pieces.  I'm running counter to my nature here.  Usually, I'm all about the process of things, as you know.  But this highly-textured twist front top?  I tried it on in South Carolina at a knit shop near the beach and had to have the yarn and the pattern.  Had to have it.  

The process of knitting with this tightly chained, thick and thin cotton yarn?  I am not loving it.  It's fiddly and you can't get any rhythm going.  This all-stockinette knit should be quick and mindless, but instead it's arduous.  This, friends, is product knitting all the way.

Here's the thing.  The nubbly fabric?  Killer.  Drape and texture galore.  The pattern support for the yarn?  There are three things in the booklet I'd make and another cute vest in this summer's Interweave Knits.  This top?  Flattering, drapey, different.  I keep conjuring the finished product in my mind's eye to get myself to knit on it.  

The hip replacement recovery is coming along.  You'd think that three and a half weeks at home, sitting around waiting for people to bring me food or visit me would have resulted in quite a bit of fiber related productivity, wouldn't you?  Not so.  Parts of those weeks are a little foggy, I guess, but still.  

On the right, 4 ounces of Dyeabolical Club fiber, merino, Maillot Jaune colorway, about 380 yards.  

In the middle, 8 ounces of Hello Yarn club fiber from May, merino, about 700 yards.

On bobbins at the back, more Hello Yarn club fiber, Prism colorway, Polwarth, still have to ply.

In the front, Corgi Hill Farms alpaca silk, about 2.5 ounces but I lost the other half of the braid so it's not quite done yet.  Foggy, I told you...

There was quite a bit of spinning, but not as much as during the last Tour de Fleece.  I wouldn't say that the hip replacement limited me physically as much as mentally -- vicodin makes for intermittent spinning mojo.

On the wheel right now is the current Spunky Eclectic club fiber, a purple/green/navy Wensleydale.  I'm thinking thick and thin, plied with some Color Mart stuff (cashmere blend?) I have on a cone.  I have 12 ounces.  I might be able to stretch it to a swingy vest.  Any ideas?

I had my first post-operative doctor's appointment yesterday.  I'm doing very well.  No more Crutchie, 4 more weeks of PT, 4 more weeks of hip precautions (can't bend certain ways so I don't pop it out of joint while the muscles and tendons heal to hold it in place).  

The resident spent quite a bit of time explaining that this time period may result in depression as I might feel enough better to want to really get back to my normal routine but that my body is still healing and won't let me and as a result I might have a few days where I feel pretty low.  Husband snorked laughter, and I told this earnest young man that if he substituted crabby for depressed, he'd be right on target.  Whew, crabby it is!

I got so mad trying to bend far enough to put a new drive band on my wheel the other morning that my fussing (ok, not fussing, rhymes with fussing) woke Dear Son (I kid you not... at like 9 a.m.) and he stumbled out of his room bleary eyed to help me.  

"God, Mom, chill.  I'll help, ok?"  

Yes.  Crabby, not depressed.  Boy, that'll encourage you all to visit some more, won't it...  Don't worry.  I'm released to drive too, so I can come to you.  ; )

Giddyap!

Yeah, I'm up on my high horse again.  Mostly knitting content for those who care.

Last week, my Interweave Knits daily email linked to one of their new Interweave Galleries where folks wear the sweaters from the magazine.  Usually, the gals (seemingly from the Interweave offices) wear the one sweater sent in as a sample and you get to see how it fits lots of differently sized women.  Helpful.

This week, the newsletter linked to a set of gallery pictures where staffers had knit the sweater themselves.  They discuss their processes and the modifications they've made.  Also interesting.  

As I read through the comments concerning the Al Fresco Camisole, I started to hyperventilate.  Well, not really, but I wanted too.  Truth is, the story told in the comments has lost it's shock value for me.  

In a nutshell, the gals wanting to make this camisole, the specs of which call for a bamboo blend (red flag, red flag, gauge alert, gauge alert!) swatched and decided that to get the gauge called for in the final product, each had to go up 4 needle sizes.  Four.  As a LYS worker, that's a red flag, too.  Rarely are needle recommendations so far off.  Even Starmore gauge often requires only a 2 or 3 needle size drop.

The next part of the story is predictable.  When each knitter made the thing, it was ginormous.  Like twice the size of the original finished product.  No surprise when you're knitting on needles almost twice the size called for in the pattern.  Neither says specifically that she washed and blocked her swatch.  I'm betting neither did. 

Each knitter then comes to the realization that after knitting the thing, it stretched.  A lot.  You think?

Ok, I'm lucky to work in a yarn shop.  I have lots and lots of experience with gauge issues and I get experience with lots of different fibers without having to knit them myself.  

And I'm about to start lobbying for the standard swatch warning to include an admonition ... in ALL CAPS ... to wash your swatch.  Wool grows.  Bamboo and rayon REALLY grow.  Super wash wool REALLY REALLY grows.  

Please, please, please, knit a swatch and wash it the way you are going to wash the sweater.  Really.  

On Ravelry this morning, a Raveler complained about a lovely yarn, Rowan Lima, growing after she'd knit the garment.  She swatched, she said, but didn't say she'd washed her swatch.  I swatched Lima too, and had to drop 2 needle sizes to get it to maintain it's shape after washing it.  It's nearly half alpaca.  And it's a chained yarn.  It's gonna grow. 

I see this in the shop all the time.  Folks want to get started on the project already.  Swatch? Oh, I always get gauge.  Fine, I tell them.  But you can't felt this alpaca to get it to fit later.  In fact, I've never seen felting help a sweater unless it was meant to be totally felted a la boiled wool to begin with.  Felting shrinks a garment lengthwise, but almost not at all width wise.  

"If you want to knit on a sweater for 100 hours," I say,"and have it not fit, that's fine with me.  But the only thing I'll be able to do for you in the end is help you rip it out."  I'm pretty firm about this.  Like I say this in the tone I used with my 9th grade English students during final exams.

Mostly then, customers swatch.  And then they let me take it to the bathroom in the back and rinse it.  Then they are believers.  

I guess the point of this post is that I don't understand how we as a knitting community have not communicated this amongst ourselves sufficiently.  How is it that so many folks end up with items that don't fit?  I've seen the lack of swatch washing affect hats, mittens, scarves, sweaters ... you name it, if it has to fit something, I've seen it go wrong.  And mostly?  The garments are too big and folks want to felt them.  Which, I repeat, never works.  And then?  You can't re knit it so that it fits.  

Part of the problem may be that a little knowledge gives you just enough to hang yourself with.  Inexperienced knitters look at all of the yarn choices listed for projects in Ravelry tabs and think, oh, I'll sub this kitchen cotton for this aran wool and it'll be perfect.  No. It. Will. Not.  

Subbing yarn can be tricky.  I help customers do it all the time, but you have to take fiber and yarn construction and a myriad of other factors under consideration to do it.  If you're downloading a free pattern and doing all the subbing yourself, it can get tricky to just conjure up those intricately shaped pieces of that sweater on your own.  Just saying.

Have I had gauge issues?  You bet.  Have I ripped an entire sweater due to the fact that after washing, it would have fit both hubster and I at the same time?  Absolutely.  I can't face those balls of yarn yet, but I will sometime.  Were these issues due to not washing my swatch?  Yes, indeedy.  

We've all done it.  Walked on the wild side.  Played gauge roulette.  Hoped for the best.  

Another thing I say is, "Do you feel lucky, punk?"  (I really do say this but I used discretion and don't say it to just anyone ... )

Sheesh.  I need a T-Shirt.  

WASH YOUR SWATCH.  

Ok, Prancer, back out to pasture.  I'm through.  ; )