The KW Swatch Experiment, Or, Why, Yes, You Need to Knit a Swatch

Kelbourne Woolens is doing a really interesting series on its website with different knitters working up swatches in their yarns, comparing them and then looking at how those different knitters would fare making a garment with that gauge if they hadn’t knit a swatch before starting.

For instance, knitters working with the company’s Arranmore yarn would have ended up with garments ranging from 8.25 inches too small to 1.5 inches too large, and indeed none of them hit gauge for the pattern in question (one did before blocking the swatch, but it came out bigger after washing, which is why it’s important not to skip that step).

I really liked the general post on gauge they included in the series, which discusses tight knitting and loose knitting, and why you still have to knit a swatch even if you think you “always” knit loose or tight as the case may be. I know that I knit somewhat loose, so if you’re knitting from one of my patterns and you think you need to change needle sizes automatically because of how you knit, you’re likely to end up with a garment that doesn’t fit.

Knitting loosely or tightly doesn’t mean there’s necessarily anything wrong with your technique or that you need to change anything; it’s just something to be aware of as you swatch and something that reinforces the need to swatch.

Do you swatch? I’ll admit I don’t when I’m making a scarf or something, but anything that needs to fit a body I do. It’s so important for the success of your finished items!

[Photo via Kelbourne Woolens.]

Next Pattern:

I don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

Next Pattern:

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