Swatch, and swatch again.
July 13th, 2003 by Donna
Here it is [this photo is gone - sorry], calmly drying after blocking. You wouldn’t know it to look at this, but making a 6-inch swatch out of cotton is harder than it looks; [this photo is gone too - sorry] particularly if you measure wrong and make an 8-inch swatch instead. My gauge swatch for this project turned out to be larger than the project itself! But it was a handy lesson in the value of swatching (note to self: buy new, more accurate knitting gauge ruler).
This was a seed stitch using Bernat Cottontots in Sunshine. The seed stitch slowed me down, but turned out to be excellent practice for knitting, purling - and frogging - mistakes were easy to spot. The other lesson learned? Buy a yarn that feels good wound up - the texture won’t improve when it’s knitted. The Cottontots is 100% cotton and also feels lovely to work with; I think this may also be a lesson in not buying the most inexpensive yarn you see - all yarns are obviously not created equal.
Off to France with you - a tout vitesse!
3 Responses to “Swatch, and swatch again.”
The stitch pattern + color + shiny cotton in your swatch is gorgeous. And I’m impressed - you did it in SEED STITCH. In COTTON. No wonder you were a-froggin’! Not many people can take doing seed stitch, much less in cotton, because work is slow. You rock
(P.S. The types of cotton yarn to work with, in my opinion, are 100% mercerised cotton in dk weight and 100% cotton or cotton blends up to bulky weight that are very tightly spun - there’s less splitting and they’re lighter.)
I keep wondering who my neighbors will be on the blanket. Yours is the 2nd white swatch I have seen; the other had a cable. Mine is red, white & blue instarsia. Hope to be next to your beautifully textured swatch!
I am knitting a seed stitch hat, however I am not clear as to how to do the decreases. Help! Any suggestions?