i always hate it when people say this to me, but maybe they’re right: worse things DO happen at sea.
So I’m looking on the bright side here. The glass is half full. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And other inane and trite platitudes as well.
I cannot stay asleep any more. Last night I went to sleep around 11, and woke up at 12:34. (no kidding) Then I was awake at 1:15, 2:20, 3:30 (was wide awake for at least 45 minutes that time), 5:00, and 5:30. Finally I just got up. What the hell – may as well knit. So, in the spirit of the above-mentioned platitudes, look at all this knitting time I have created in a day! Who needs sleep anyway – apparently not me! I’ve been saying I wish I had more hours in the day, and now I do! Lucky lucky me! (maybe my glass is more than half full, maybe it’s overflowing!) All those exclamation points!
Don’t tell my other projects ….. shh ….. but I started the Laar swatch. Again in the spirit of overflowing glasses, swatching is the best thing in the world! Not only do you get a better sense that your sweater might fit, you also get to play with that new yarn that’s whispering/calling/shouting at you all the time. You get to free two birds with one, um, act! So much nicer than killing two birds, what a violent saying. So in my middle-night knitting, I wound one skein of my yarn into a ball and cast on:
my Laar swatch, with Clotho
The subtle shifts in color are really going to make this fabric gorgeous. I can’t wait to block the finished swatch and see what happens with the yarn. Laceweight yarn on size US6 needles produces such an airy, light fabric, very very pretty. But making the swatch is definitely relieving some of the ‘must cast on now’ pressure, which is great because I need to finish my shrug and my scarf.
And now, the source of this title’s post. From The Life of Brian (the best part of that Monty Python movie, in my opinion): “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” The post title comes in at the end of the song, and always made me and Marnie crack up. Worse things happen at sea, what a bizarre and hilarious line:
Happy Friday y’all!
me and numbers, we just agree to disagree.
So remember a couple of posts ago, when I said “it’s a good thing I swatched” etc etc etc? Yeah. I knit that first swatch on 3.5mm needles, and got a couple too many stitches per row. Excellent! So I needed to swatch again on a different sized needle, right? Well, I didn’t have the right size needles so I dutifully trotted to the neighborhood knitting store and bought the size next to 3.5mm, and one more size in that direction, just to be safe. Such a good knitter.
I cast on, knitted a new swatch, blocked it, and just finished counting stitches and rows.
I’d gone the wrong direction in needle sizes! I ended up with even more stitches per inch. I’ve never been good at that kind of thing – some kind of mental conceptual ability with numbers. I never know where the decimal goes if I’m multiplying or dividing by 10s or 100s or 1000s. I just don’t have the abstract number sense, like, at ALL. I have a graduate minor in statistics and adore stats! But agility with stats does not equal abstract number sense.
So swatch again I must ….. with a larger needle than 3.5mm, Lori! To lift my spirits, I’ll watch this over and over while I knit:
2nd lesson in 2 days about knitting – i feel like such a grownup!
Well, aren’t I glad I did this – I dutifully completed my (first) swatch for my beautiful new Peasy sweater. Last night I wet blocked the swatch, and I just unpinned it, got out my measuring tape, and checked my gauge. Using a 3.5mm needle, my gauge should have been 22 st and 30 rows = 4 inches. But I got 23.5 and 31 rows = 4 inches. Here are my lessons learned:
1) because I now know from my Wowie Zowie sock lesson that what seems like a small difference can actually be a very large difference,
2) I need to go down a needle size, and
3) the fabric is going to be absolutely gorgeous, with the most lovely hand and drape ever.
Madelinetosh is not in danger of being toppled from the top of my favorite- yarn- ever list — especially not with tosh merino light in this world — but Rowan Tweed has scootched immediately to a close second. I think I’ll knit a Manu with Rowan Tweed after I finish my beautiful Peasy and an Austin Hoodie with TML. I also have enough yarn for an Inaugural sweater.
Oh dear. I think I’ve just become a sweater knitter.* Good thing I live in a place with a long cold winter. 
With a nice long weekend coming up, I have knitting plans that include finishing Marnie’s wedding shawl and getting it blocked, doing some work (you know, instead of saying work I’d rather say ‘fun’) doing some fun on my Wowie Zowie socks, and maybe I’m just sayin maybe getting going on my Peasy. Last night was the first major festivity associated with leaving my job; 20 people I work with came to a little party for me, and it was quite amazing. Much toasting and fete-ing and love; hugs and kisses from each one at the end. Tonight is a drinks farewell with my boss’s boss and my best work friend, Thursday night is my writing group. Not much will happen until the weekend but it’s all going to be fun. When it’s good, life can be really, really good, you know?
*disclaimer and acknowledgment: knitting a swatch does not guarantee becoming a sweater knitter…there is still the ability to be in it for the long haul, the perseverance to finish all the fiddly bits, and (for some sweaters) the ability to assemble pieces. The jury is still out on me with these parts!
another adorable subway story – I’m not kidding!
Another subway story – this one really made me happy. It’s another hot and muggy day, even early in the morning, and we’ve got a long holiday weekend ahead. I think people (especially the early morning commuters) are all a bit dazed – at least, they were in my subway car this morning. Since I’m coming up to my last day at this job, I’m not killing myself to get in so early so I was traveling during more regular rush hour than usual, which meant I didn’t get to sit. No matter; the train wasn’t densely crowded so it was just fine. I stood next to a pole in the center of the car, in case the conductor was one of those kinds of drivers, and pulled out my knitting.
this isn't the actual swatch, but it IS this yarn
[sidebar announcement! I am knitting a swatch! I KNOW! Kelly is a good influence on me, plus I really want to make a beautiful sweater that fits me.]
So there I was, a bit dazed myself, listening to the new RadioLab podcast and knitting my swatch. At some point I finally glanced up and all the people sitting in front of me – and I mean very literally all the people, each one in the entire row – were gazing up at me with slight smiles and big eyes. You know how it is when you’re kind of out of it, and something captures your attention, that kind of dopey unfixed smile you get? Well, it was like that. All these people gazing up at me with slight dopey smiles. In their dazed state, seeing someone do something a little unusual must have been just enough to capture their unfocused attention. I felt like the mother, or the teacher, and it was really charming. I wish I’d had a hidden camera so I could’ve captured it for you.
At the next major stop, most of the people on that row shook themselves a little and got up to leave the train, but a couple of guys stayed. And for the entire trip, they held that expression on their faces.
Tonight I’ll wet block my swatch; I feel like such a responsible grown-up!
help me swatchers, help help me swatchers
There are some things we all know we should do – flossing our teeth at least twice a day, weight-bearing exercise as we age – and swatching, if we knit. I confess that I have never swatched, and I know I should but I don’t quite get it.
I understand the need to make a swatch if I’m making a garment that needs to fit in a particular way. Scarves don’t have to be swatched, I get that. Sweaters do. Yep, I get it. I know how to change needles to get stitch gauge but I don’t know what to do if my row gauge is off, even if the stitch gauge is right. Basically I just kind of do a bit of ostrich-dealing, pretend I don’t know anything about row gauge, and sally forth. It hasn’t been a problem, since I’ve frogged every sweater I started.
This time, though, I want to really make a sweater. Finish it, block it, take it to the end and end up with something I love to wear. So I know I need to learn more about swatching. When I’ve got spilkes, or when I’m not going to get to use a new yarn for a while and I’m just dying to do more than touch it, I’ll cast on 20-30 stitches and just knit a few rows in stockinette, to try to get it out of my system. Hardly swatching, but still, it’s a little fun.
I couldn't leave that Rowan Felted Tweed alone....
But there’s another thing about swatching I really don’t understand. I’ll read people’s posts describing swatching all the new yarn they get. Or they’ll say things like “my binders full of swatches were taking over the library!” and I just don’t know what that means. Even if I pretend I know what it’s like to design a sweater, I can imagine making very specific swatches to figure out the yarn and needle combination to get drape; the yarn and needle combination for different weights of yarn if I want to provide alternatives; and the gauge issues for pattern knitting. I get that. Is there some other use for swatching that I just don’t understand? Swatchers? (and I’m serious: how do you change needle sizes to hit row gauge, when the stitch gauge is right?!)
Popular posts: