Annie Knits: 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. ; )

Comments

You know so much. Really. It's kind of amazing.

"Wash your swatch" is why I have faith that the kauni sweater will fit when I'm done: it is too small right now, I know, but the swatch, when washed, fits.

"Wash your swatch" is why I plan to never follow another sweater pattern again. I will always create my own. I just don't trust myself with patterns.

Posted by: Bridgett | July 24, 2011 at 01:43 PM