Tag Archives: swatching

Top 5 reasons to knit a swatch

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Top 5 reasons to knit a swatch

Knitting a swatch is considered sacrosanct to some; a waste of time to others; and still others just can’t get their heads around how or why to do it. I’ve addressed the most basic aspects of how to knit a swatch before, but today I want to talk about why. Because there are more reasons for taking the time than you may have considered.

1. Meet the fabric
To me, this is even more important than the standard reason cited for swatching (which I’ve thus demoted to No. 2). Casting on without swatching is like getting married at first sight. Think of the swatching process as you and the fabric getting to know each other first. If you’re using the yarn specified in a pattern, you might find out you don’t really like it, or would prefer it knitted at a denser or looser gauge. If you’re substituting yarn, a swatch will help you know if you’ve chosen well. What about your color choice — will the pattern (and the fabric) look good in that color, or will the yarn and stitch pattern drown each other out?

The purple swatch above was for a potential Bellows Cardigan. I loved the sweater pattern and the color of the yarn, but as soon as I knitted the swatch in that color, I knew that was not a garment I would wear, so I changed course before ordering a sweater’s worth of it.

You want to know that you’ll want to wear this fabric, so knit a big swatch, and block it. Wrap it around your forearm like a sleeve. Tuck it in the back of your shirt collar and wear it around for awhile. Or if it’s for a hat, tuck it inside another hat, pressed against your forehead, and see how it feels. (And don’t forget to abuse your swatch to see how it holds up.)

You also want to know that you’ll enjoy knitting it. The swatch in the upper left is Mungo, and the one next to it is a strand of Mungo held together with a strand of Pebble, which I thought I might like even better. I did like it better, but not so much that the added expense of the second strand was justifiable, plus I discovered that it would have been maddening to knit, as those two yarns are super clingy with each other. So the second swatch convinced me to stick with the first.

2. Check your gauge (or “tension”)
The only way to know what the finished dimensions of your knitted object will be is to know how big your stitches are. If you’re knitting from a pattern, and it states finished measurements, yours will only match those measurements if your stitches are the same size as those of the person who wrote the pattern.

Stitches are the building blocks of knitted fabric.

Imagine I’m hanging out with Monique and Tessa and I build a little castle wall out of blocks. The girls want to copy it, so I tell them how many blocks wide each of my rows is, and how many rows tall, so they can replicate it. If Monique is using the same blocks as me, her wall will match. If Tessa’s blocks are smaller, she will quickly realize that if she follows my directions, her wall will be smaller. If her blocks are bigger, her wall will be bigger. Same with knitting.

Knitting patterns include gauge so you can make sure you’re building with the right size blocks. If you don’t care how big your “wall” turns out — if you’re knitting a scarf or a shawl; or if the hat, socks or sweater you’re planning to knit can turn out any old size and you’ll find someone who fits them — then maybe don’t worry about it. But if fit matters, knit a swatch, block it and measure your gauge.

3. Try out the stitch pattern(s)
Becoming a more advanced knitter means continually tackling new challenges and developing new skills. Lace, cables, short rows, different increases and decreases. These things can look a little messy on first try, or maybe you just want to see if you can do it before casting on a large project’s worth. Try it on a swatch! The swatch in the center right above is my first swatch for my Amanda cardigan, and in addition to establishing my gauge, it gave me a chance to get comfortable with some cable motifs I hadn’t done before at that point — the diamond, the braid and the honeycomb stitch.

This is also a chance to discover things you might want to know before you officially get started. That swatch was on gauge but I didn’t like how the honeycomb looked a bit cracked, so I wound up going down a needle size and liking it better. On my second swatch for it, at center left, I also decided to test whether cabling without a cable needle would impact my gauge — and boy did it! If you look closely at that center left swatch, you can see that the bottom half of the honeycomb is sort of squashed, compacted. That’s the part I knitted without a cable needle. For the upper part, I did use a cable needle and it gave the honeycomb a more natural look. So even though that’s a ton of cabling, I had to make the commitment to do the entire cardigan with a cable needle — and I’m glad I knew that beforehand.

Likewise, if you’re doing colorwork you may simply want to practice first — but you might also find your colorwork gauge is different from your single-yarn gauge. So if you’re knitting, say, a sweater with a colorwork yoke and a solid-color body, you may need to use two different needle sizes to get the same gauge across those two different fabrics. (Many knitters need to go up one needle size for colorwork.)

4. Do your own math
If, like in the cable example in No. 3, you consciously decide to knit at a gauge different than pattern gauge, then knowing your gauge (the size of your stitches) in comparison to the pattern gauge is the way to control the outcome. Going back to those building blocks, once Tessa realizes her blocks are smaller than mine, she can choose to stick with my numbers and let the wall be smaller. If she wants to know how much smaller before committing, knowing the size of her blocks and mine will allow her to calculate that. If her blocks are half the size of mine, her wall will be half the size. If, on the other hand, she likes the look of her smaller blocks but wants to use them to make a wall the same size as mine, again, knowing the size (the gauge) of her blocks is the key. If her blocks are half the size, she’ll need twice as many. Or she might decide to build a wall like mine but to her own preferred measurements, which she can easily calculate if she has simply measured her blocks. If each block is 4″ wide and she wants to build a 20″ wall, she’ll need 5 blocks per row. Just like stitches! (Of course, if there’s a stitch pattern involved, you always need to keep its multiple in mind. E.g., a 6-st cable that repeats across the fabric would require a stitch count that’s a multiple of six.)

5. Buy enough yarn
There’s also the matter of yarn math. Pretty much every swatch I’ve ever knitted for someone else’s pattern has come in at tighter row gauge than theirs. If my building blocks are shallower than theirs, it will take more of them to reach the same height, right? If it takes me more rows to fill in a sweater than it did for the pattern creator, I’ll also require more yarn than they used. So again, you want to know a thing like that before you get started.

. . .

These 5 cases are largely focused on situations where you’re knitting from a pattern, but of course if you want to knit from an idea in your head, a swatch is the starting point. Swatching is a way to figure out what sort of fabric a given yarn might want or be willing to be. (“What happens if you hold two strands of Pebble together and try to cable with it?” See second-from-bottom swatch above.) And once you’ve knitted your yarn into a fabric that feels right for it, what sort of object does that little square of fabric want to become?

A swatch gives you the power to go your own way.

For lots more great tips, see the comments below.

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PREVIOUSLY in How to: How to knit an adult cardigan at child size

Steekalong prep: Mary Jane on choosing yarn

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I’m thrilled at all of the enthusiasm over the upcoming Fringe and Friends Steekalong featuring Mary Jane Mucklestone’s Sólbein cardigan — kicking off January 1st. Several questions have been raised about color and yarn choices, which obviously need to be decided before casting on, so I’m doing a couple of advance Q&A’s with Mary Jane this month, starting today with those concerns. (We’ll talk about steek method alternatives next.)

To recap, Sólbein is designed for Léttlopi Icelandic wool yarn which is both unique and affordable — I’ve written about the yarn before here. In this case, it’s also knitted at a larger gauge (which works due to magic discussed below), the result being a sweater that knits up quickly, is somewhat less warm than if you knitted the same yarn at a more typical gauge, and is even less expensive, using less of an already affordable yarn. If you’re unsure about the lopi fabric, I highly recommend buying a few balls to swatch with, especially given the price point — knit a swatch, soak your swatch and get to know what the fabric is really like. If then it is not for you, we talk about the challenges and options for substituting yarns below. And you can use your leftover Léttlopi to make some Giving Mitts.

So with that, here’s Mary Jane — and if you have other yarn questions not answered here, please ask them below!

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First, let’s talk about picking colors for Sólbein. I did the big roundup of palette suggestions that were mostly based on your model of using light/medium/dark shades of a single color. Can you talk about the effect that has, and why you chose it over a more contrasty or colorful approach?

When I designed the sweater it was based on the prompt “lines.” I love a simple prompt. I started thinking about radiating lines and eventually about light streaming through my windows on a winter’s day, and sunbeams. I wanted an ethereal kind of shimmer. I design on the needle and knitted the light one first.  To get the effect I saw in my mind’s eye, I chose a group of three colors that were fairly close in value, with the white acting as a bold color … if that makes sense.

When thinking about a second colorway, charcoal seemed a great choice for the main body color, so different from the first version. Choosing such a dark dark allowed different spacing between the values, but still in the same sequence: darkest for the body, middle for the ribbing and lightest for sunbeams. The medium color also become beams, when they progress into the darkest color.

So that was just my personal thinking about a knitted way to describe lines and my interpretation of lines being light. I’ve seen some really cute bright versions of Sólbein though — some even in candy colors, still arranged in a value sequence — and they are super cute!

Léttlopi is not like any other yarn I’ve ever used, and I find it impossible to describe to anyone — it’s so incredibly light and has such a halo that the fabric is more like a puff of wool-infused air or something. You’ve compounded that by knitting on a larger-than-usual needle: It’s aran-gauge yarn (or heavy worsted) knitted here on chunky needles, but the resulting fabric is not loose stockinette because of the way the lopi fleece blooms to fill the would-be gaps. I’d never seen that done before your Stopover pattern (and I wound up trying it with my little black raglan sweater). Is that a trick you’d seen before with Léttlopi?

I love Léttlopi. I love the fuzz and the loft and the lightness of it. And the shine — it glimmers. We traveled to Iceland in the ’70s and my mom got a lopapeysa which I’ve always always loved. It was so thick, but still so light in weight, and that’s the thing for me — lopi produces a warm but lightweight garment. So the memory of the utility of that sweater has never left me.

I came to knit Léttlopi at a loose gauge because I was in a hurry. I always wore my favorite storebought lopapeysa I got a few years ago, and a friend pointed out that I had it on in every picture and I needed to be wearing my own designs. Realizing that I had a week before my next trip, I consulted my stash and thought … why not? I didn’t have regular lopi, only had Léttlopi, and I figured I could use a bigger needle for a faster knit. I also wanted a warm sweater that wouldn’t weigh a lot because of airline weight restrictions, and that could take a beating being squished and compacted in a suitcase. I did a little swatching and I kept pushing the needle size, seeing how big I could get away with. Léttlopi is magical; once washed, the loft of it fills in the gaps of the loose gauge. 

All of those lopi traits and gauge trickery are what makes it difficult to suggest yarn substitutions. A typical aran-weight yarn would not do well being knitted at such a large gauge, and especially with colorwork involved. Substituting here would require using a chunky yarn, which would result in a heavier, denser sweater. It might be more or less warm than the lopi, depending, but it would not be the same light-as-air sweater. On top of which, not all yarns are suited to either colorwork or steeking. It needs to be a woolly wool with some grip. (Nothing super smooth, slippery or superwash.) Which doesn’t leave a lot of options! Do you think it would work with any of the lighter, more roving-y wools like Turbine and Puffin and Quarry? What’s your best suggestion?

Hmmm … yes. You can substitute, but I can’t think of any yarn that will produce a sweater that is as light in weight as Léttlopi. But not everyone needs a sweater to cram in a suitcase, or that weighs next to nothing. So swatch! Swatching is fun. It’s like an experiment — like you are a knitting scientist or a knitting explorer charting new territory!  Test out a potential yarn and decide if you like the knitted result. Wash the swatch to see what happens. See how much larger you can make it with blocking. Léttlopi has a lot of leeway — when it’s wet you can make it grow if you want it to grow, or just pat it into place if you don’t want it to. 

But you want answers! I’ve used Puffin when I’m swatching for design and I want a yarn where I can rip things out without much harm… so I know the gauge will work and it will be pretty. But it will be different, it will be more solid and weigh more. Quarry is kind of like roving, so it will probably work, and be fairly light. It won’t have the glossy sparkle that Lettlopi has, but it could be nice. So yeah. Everything will be a trade off, but that’s fine, and can be an adventure of discovery!

Among those not averse to using lopi wool, several people have also asked whether the unspun Plötulopi would work? And I’m wondering the opposite — any reason someone couldn’t use the bulky-gauge Alafoss Lopi? In which case you’d be knitting it at standard gauge, for a more typical Icelandic outerwear sort of garment, am I right? 

I think Plötulopi stranded double will work, in fact I’ve seen it done on Instagram. I wouldn’t use a single strand because I don’t believe the edge will be strong enough to support a button band. Standard Lopi will be fine, and it will make a more traditional lopapeysa. It will be heavier and warmer and can function as a jacket. It could be fantastic now that I think about it. Not for my international flights maybe, but as outwear it would be great.

Obviously, whatever one is considering potentially substituting, as you’ve noted, it would be exceptionally important to knit a big swatch, make sure it’s suitable for the colorwork and gauge, and also potentially cut the swatch to confirm the steek will hold. How do you advise swatching for this sweater, in any case?

Well, ideally, you swatch the way your garment will be knit, so in the round, with the needles you’ll be using … so a hat-sized swatch. I’d practice both plain stockinette and do some of the colorwork lines. Really get a feel for the fabric you are making. I hear some groans … . If you really really don’t want to do that, you could also knit flat, utilizing a Shetland technique called “brak an eek”, or break and join. On a circular needle you knit flat, joining yarn on the right edge, and breaking it on the left edge, sliding the stitches back to the right, and repeating. You knot the broken yarns after a couple of rows. Keep in mind if you’re new to this, it might take a bit of practice, and you also won’t be able to reuse the yarn. In either case it’s a bonus if you want to try out your steeking method on the swatch, great preparation!

Interesting — I just leave a long loop across the back of the swatch for each row, and cut the loops at the end.

The other option for anyone wanting to substitute yarn but not wanting to go the bulky route would be to knit aran-weight yarn at aran gauge and to do their own gauge math. Any caveats for anyone thinking of going that route? (Other than “don’t ask Mary Jane to do your math!”)

I say go for it if you want to. Since it’s knitted top-down, you can easily knit it to the length you want. A friend of mine has had great success knitting Sólbein at a 4.5 stitch gauge. She’s had to fiddle with things and ripped a bunch out but her finished sweater is divine. 

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PREVIOUSLY in Fringe and Friends Steekalong: Sólbein palette ideas

Swatch of the Month: Finding inspiration in Georgia O’Keeffe

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s post marks a full year and the last installment of Jess’s lovely and thoughtful Swatch of the Month column, and it might be my favorite one! It’s been a true pleasure, Jess, thank you for going above and beyond. And if anyone missed any of it, you can read through all twelve of them right here.
—Karen

Swatch of the Month: Finding inspiration in Georgia O'Keeffe

BY JESS SCHREIBSTEIN | Last January, my partner and I went to New Mexico for my 30th birthday, and I haven’t really been able to shake the place from my mind. Even in the dead of winter, the landscape feels alive and endlessly inspiring. Rust red rock erodes and splatters the sides of the freeway like paint, and bleached ivory and camel-colored cliffs look outright sculptural against the expansive sky and low-lying rabbitbrush, cholla and piñon. At higher altitudes, like in Santa Fe, you’ll wake up to a dusting of white snow over everything that’s usually gone by lunchtime. It’s easy to see why New Mexico, and Santa Fe in particular, has attracted tradesmen, artists, medicine people and even nuclear physicists for generations. There’s a magnetic, intoxicating quality to it.

Of its many famous inhabitants, Georgia O’Keeffe is one of the most well-known. While her husband, the famous photographer Alfred Stieglitz, preferred the energy of New York City, O’Keeffe preferred quiet and isolation for her painting. She first traveled to Santa Fe in 1917, when she was a relative unknown, and instantly fell in love. She later wrote, “From then on, I was always trying to get back there… and in 1929 I finally made it.”

Before we went on our trip, I picked up a copy of Laurie Lisle’s biography of Georgia, “Portrait of an Artist,” and continued to read it during the trip and after we’d returned home. The descriptions of Georgia’s attitude and approach to making a life – her painting rituals, design sensibility, mode of dress – were equally reflective of place and her own persona, both modern and of its time and completely her own.

Swatch of the Month: Finding inspiration in Georgia O'Keeffe

HER LIFE

Georgia and Stieglitz met in New York where he ran his famous modern New York gallery, 291, which introduced American viewers to artists like Matisse, Rodin, Cézanne and Picasso. He was married and more than twenty years her senior, but they instantly fell in love. In 1918, Georgia accepted Stieglitz’s offer to move from Texas (where she was living and teaching at the time) to New York, where he would financially support her so she could paint. He displayed her early charcoal drawings and, later, her now-infamous flower paintings on the walls of 291, and her career took off. By the end of the 1920s, she was the most successful and highly paid woman artist in America.

In 1924, Stieglitz divorced his wife and he and Georgia married. Their marriage was intimate and passionate, but also a constant struggle through Stieglitz’s repeated infidelities and Georgia’s vying for professional and personal independence. Lisle writes:

“When some people resented her special position as Stieglitz’s paramour, she found it necessary to remind them that he had given her two shows before ‘he knew me personally,’ as she put it. After their marriage, when people addressed her as ‘Mrs. Stieglitz,’ she briskly corrected them with, ‘I am Georgia O’Keeffe.’ ‘I’ve had a hard time hanging on to my name, but I hang on to it with my teeth,’ she explained. ‘I like getting what I’ve got on my own.’ Once when an interviewer referred to Georgia as his ‘wife,’ Stieglitz objected on her behalf. ‘Don’t call her my ‘wife.’ There was a Mrs. Stieglitz I was married to for twenty-four years,’ he said. ‘From the beginning she just felt she was Georgia O’Keeffe, and I agreed with her. She’s a person in her own right.’”

While Georgia was deliberate about her appearance and persona throughout her life, and Stieglitz largely supported her, he was also responsible for perpetuating an overtly feminine and sensual interpretation of her work. Stieglitz took hundreds of photographs of Georgia in their early years together, many in the nude, which created a public sensation and defined her as a sexual being. He also encouraged the interpretation of her flower paintings as female genitalia, although Georgia flatly denied this. She wanted to be respected as a serious artist, not a serious “woman” artist. She rejected modern feminism, wanting to be compared to men’s work without her identity diminishing how others saw her.

In 1929, after Georgia had been hospitalized for exhaustion and depression, she traveled to Taos, New Mexico, with a friend for several months where her spirit and work were reignited. She bought a Ford Model A and learned to drive, and enjoyed exploring the landscape and collecting bones, rocks and other found objects for her paintings. In 1933, she was hospitalized again for a nervous breakdown, and returned to New Mexico in 1934, when she visited Ghost Ranch for the first time. For the next twenty years, she traveled every year between New York and New Mexico, leaving behind Stieglitz in New York. In the 1940s, she bought Ghost Ranch and later a crumbling hacienda in Abiquiu, which she restored as a home and studio for herself. After Stieglitz died in 1946, she spent the last thirty years of her life there. Her homes are beautifully captured in the book pictured here, “Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Houses.”

Growing up, Georgia always stood out for her unusual but self-assured attitude and wardrobe. While other girls wore ruffles and floral print dresses, Georgia dressed in all-black, preferring tailored, structured garments. According to Lisle, Georgia’s former classmate Christine McRae wrote many years later:

“The most unusual thing about her was the absolute plainness of her attire. She wore a tan coat suit, short, severe, and loose, into this room filled with girls with small waists and tight-fitting dresses bedecked in ruffles and bows. Pompadours and ribbons vied with each other in size and elaborateness, but Georgia’s hair was drawn smoothly back from her broad, prominent forehead, and she had no bow on her head at all, only one at the bottom of her pigtail to keep it from unplaiting. Nearly every girl in the study hall planned just how she was going to dress Georgia up, but her plans came to naught, for this strongminded girl knew what suited her and would not be changed though she approved of other girls dressing in frills and furbelows.”

Her style didn’t change much as she grew older. Georgia wore predominantly androgynous, at times monkish, attire. She was a master seamstress and sewed and altered many of her own clothes, preferring natural fibers like silk, cotton and wool and keeping some of her dresses for as long as sixty years. And although she’s known for her vividly colored paintings, she was highly sensitive to color and insisted on everything else being minimalist in color and detail, choosing to work in empty white rooms and to dress in black and white almost exclusively. She once said, “Nothing is less real than realism ― details are confusing. […] It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get the real meaning of things.” At another time, when she was asked by a reporter, “Don’t you like color?,” she responded, “Color does something to me,” and tried to explain why she needed to paint in a colorless room. “I like an empty wall because I can imagine what I like on it.”

Now, thirty years after her death, Georgia’s work and personal style have seemed to erupt across our public imagination. I see portraits of Georgia – mainly the ones by Stieglitz – across social media regularly, and her design sensibility seems to be fresh and on trend. Even Solange paid homage to her in her music videos for her album “Seat at the Table,” saying, “I shot a lot of my [music] videos in New Mexico, just that entire Georgia O’Keeffe vibe — I’m dying to see her exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.”

Speaking of that exhibit, Georgia’s wardrobe and work are now on display, side by side, in Brooklyn Museum’s exhibit, Living Modern. The reviews from The New Yorker (previously linked out by Karen), The New York Times, Huffington Post and New York Magazine are all worth reading for their take on the exhibition and Georgia’s style, as well as lots of photos. I haven’t made it to the exhibition yet myself, but I’m hoping to catch it before it closes this summer.

Swatch of the Month: Finding inspiration in Georgia O'Keeffe

THE SWATCH

Using Georgia O’Keeffe and Santa Fe as a touchstone, I wanted to knit a fabric that reflected the New Mexican landscape she loved, and that would feel at home in Georgia’s wardrobe. It would be easy enough to find a black or cream yarn (I have plenty in my stash) that Georgia would have undoubtedly worn, but I chose a rust-red wool and hemp blend with flecks of cream from Elsebeth Lavold. When I saw the skein of Misty Wool in a yarn shop, everything clicked for me – it so perfectly mirrored the color and texture of the New Mexican landscape.

Next, I wanted the fabric to have both structure and texture, as well as honor Georgia’s minimalist style. Much of Georgia’s early work is comprised of abstract black and white lines and shapes, and her later work continues a focus on lines, divisions of space, blocks of color. With these elements in mind, I chose a herringbone stitch from my stitch pattern book, Barbara Walker’s “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns,” something that I thought could be easily incorporated into a heavy jacket or rectangular shawl.

Swatch of the Month: Finding inspiration in Georgia O'Keeffe

Yarn: Elsebeth Lavold Misty Wool in Color 11
Needles: US 7 / 4.5 mm bamboo needles
Gauge: 30 stitches / 28 rows = 4” in stockinette stitch

M E T H O D

For stitch method, please see “Little Herringbone” stitch pattern on page 98 of “A Treasury of Knitting Patterns” by Barbara Walker.

Jess Schreibstein is a digital strategist, knitter and painter living in Baltimore, MD. Learn more about her work at jess-schreibstein.com or follow her on Instagram at @thekitchenwitch.

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PREVIOUSLY in Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

New Mexico photos © Jess Schreibstein / book pictured is “Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Houses”

Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

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QUICK NOTE: I’ll be on a plane to France this afternoon, but never fear — I’ve got blog posts queued up in my absence and DG is manning the Fringe Supply Co. shipping department as usual, so order all you want! Please forgive any delay in comment moderation (new commenters) though, and I expect to be sharing liberally on Instagram while I’m away, so follow me @karentempler. Now here’s Jess!
—Karen

Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

BY JESS SCHREIBSTEIN | Back in November, I wrote about my trip to Rhinebeck and the gorgeous Hudson Valley Fibers yarn I brought home with me. I also wrote about how I wanted to “get back to basics,” knit that cream-colored “throw-over-anything, cropped and boxy cardigan” that is somehow a deficit in my handmade (or store-bought) wardrobe.

And that got me thinking about the rest of my wardrobe, the things I desire most, the things that I feel are missing, the things that are hardest to find – pre-made or otherwise. I really want a few pairs of high-waisted pants, some classic trim trousers in a structured wool for winter, or wide-leg sailor pants for spring and summer. (Psst … Emily Wallace sewed up her own Kamm pant lookalike in a must-see sherbet pink, for a fraction of the store price. Adding that to my “someday” to-do list!) I’d also love to have a select few boxy, seamed, set-in-sleeve pullovers knit up in a DK or worsted weight, with a snug, foldover neckband. I could imagine those sweaters being just as dreamy and necessary in a tweedy toffee brown or a bright, speckled colorway. And of course, I long for that basic cream cardigan. You can check out my Pinterest “Spring” board to get a better picture of what I’m envisioning in my head.

I list all of this out because I’m seeing a discernable pattern here. I’m thirsty for well-constructed, timeless but modern basics. I love juicy cables and an Icelandic yoked sweater as much as the next knitter, but those sweaters ultimately aren’t the ones I usually reach for when I’m getting ready in the morning.

There’s something about “basics” that sounds dull and ho-hum to a knitter looking for a challenge, but I think there’s a way to bridge that gap between “I want this thing” and the perceived snoozefest factor. Knitting in straight stockinette or rib can be dull knitting, sure, but it can also zip up pretty fast and be meditative and gratifying in its own way, especially if the yarn is a dream and you’re designing or modifying your own pattern to make it really yours. I’m also finding that it pushes me to be more attentive to shaping and finishing details that set a handmade garment apart from my earlier work.

So, back to that cream dream cardigan – I put it on my 2017 to-do list, and here we are, five months later and at the start of spring. I’ve swatched and cast on my second top-down sweater using Karen’s tutorial, and quite frankly, I’m in love. I carry this project with me everywhere and the knitting has been addictive.

Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

MY PLAN

I’m knitting a slightly oversized, boxy, cropped cardigan. I want to keep the lines and visual interest minimal, having this sweater be a truly throw-over-anything kind of piece. I cast on a total 56 stitches for the neck to start, breaking up the stitches as follows: 2 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 30 | 1 | 9 | 1 | 2. That means 1 stitch for each side of the front of the sweater with 1 selvedge stitch each, 30 stitches for the back, and 9 stitches each for the sleeves. I’ll use a basting stitch to seam up that 1-stitch raglan across the yoke. I’m working the entire sweater in stockinette, with the exception of some ribbing for the sleeve cuffs, bottom hem and a neckband.

To work my increases, I increased on either side of the raglans every other row a total of 23 times for the sleeves, and 25 times for the body. I also increased a stitch on either side of the front of the cardigan every 8 rows to give a steep sloped “V” in the front. Since this is such a simple pattern, I wanted to be extra mindful of my choice of increases, so I opted for the following method that I picked up from Julie Hoover’s Cline pattern:

Inc-R (Increase – Right Leaning): Lift right leg of the stitch below the first stitch on the left needle onto left needle and knit it, then slip the first stitch on left needle purlwise

Inc-L (Increase – Left Leaning): Slip next stitch from left needle purlwise, then lift the left leg of the stitch below the slipped stitch onto left needle and knit it though the back loop

Once my increases were complete, I cast on 15 stitches for the underarm on each side, and will continue working the rest of the sweater flat, without shaping, to achieve that boxy look.

Sizing: With the increases I just laid out, the cardigan should be around 38″ at the bust with some generous sleeves, a 14″ diameter around the top of the sleeve with an 8″ armhole depth. After I made it through about 1″ of the body, I put my live body stitches on some waste yarn and blocked the whole thing, to really make sure that the fit was what I wanted. So far, so good!

Yarn: Oh, let me tell you about this yarn. I picked up a few skeins of Blue Sky Fibers’ new Woolstok in Highland Fleece (undyed) colorway over the winter, and it has a really unique balance of softness and tooth. It’s a worsted weight, 2-ply yarn produced out of Arequipa, Peru. You can read more about the origins of Woolstok (and see lots of stunning photos of Peru and the production process) on Blue Sky Fibers’ blog. It’s bouncy, bright and blocks beautifully.

Curious about those other swatches in my photos? I’ve been knitting up a lot of stockinette swatches lately with pullovers and baby sweaters in mind (for lots of friends and my new niece — don’t get any ideas). The speckled yarn is Madelinetosh’s Tosh DK in Filtered Light, and that gold swatch is Plymouth Yarn Company’s Merino Superwash in 0061 Gold colorway.

Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

THE SWATCH

This swatch is as simple as they come. It’s a basic stockinette stitch pattern (knit on the right side, purl the wrong side) with a garter stitch border.

Yarn: Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok in Highland Fleece (undyed)
Needles: US 6 / 4 mm metal needles
Gauge: 20 stitches / 32.5 rows = 4″ in stockinette stitch

Swatch of the Month: Fun with stockinette

M E T H O D

Cast on 40 stitches. Work six rows in garter stitch (knit both sides of work). Begin stockinette pattern as follows:

Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Knit 3, purl until 3 stitches remain, knit 3.

Work until desired length, then repeat six rows of garter stitch to finish border. Bind off loosely.

Jess Schreibstein is a digital strategist, knitter and painter living in Baltimore, MD. Learn more about her work at jess-schreibstein.com or follow her on Instagram at @thekitchenwitch.

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Swatch of the Month: Norah’s cables

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EDITOR’S NOTE: For her column this month, Jess got to dig into the book I’ve been dying to spend more time with …
—Karen

Swatch of the Month: Norah's cables

The first knitting book I ever bought was “Last-Minute Knitted Gifts” by Joelle Hoverson, around a dozen years ago. (Years later, still a reliably solid and inspirational compilation of designs.) But the second knitting book I bought was Norah Gaughan’s “Knitting Nature,” a striking collection of over 35 knitwear designs and patterns inspired by geometry found in nature. More than any other knitting book I own, this is the one I come back to again and again.

Knitting Nature is one of those books that grows with you as a knitter and, amazingly, years after its publication doesn’t feel stale or outdated. I bought the book when I was knitting nothing more than accessories – the idea of, or even the desire to knit an intricately cabled sweater had never occurred to me. I enjoyed the book in a way that you might enjoy a stroll through an art gallery, with awe and admiration of creative work that feels simultaneously accessible and completely above your abilities as a maker.

But now, I look at some of the patterns that I glossed over when I was younger – like the Pentagon Aran Pullover or the Asymmetrical Cardigan — which both now seem so fresh and contemporary. I could easily imagine the hexagonal cable in the Asymmetrical cardigan being adapted to a top-down symmetrical cardigan (using Karen’s top-down recipe) with a cozy shawl collar in a neutral, worsted weight yarn. Maybe Blue Sky Fibers’ new Woolstok in Grey Harbor colorway? (I got a few skeins recently at my LYS and I’m obsessed.)

Swatch of the Month: Norah's cables

Norah has certainly been busy in the past ten or so years since Knitting Nature’s publication. She served as design director for Berroco Yarns and is now a member of the Brooklyn Tweed design team. All of this to say – when I found out (via Squam’s Morning on the Dock podcast interview with Norah) that she would be releasing a new book dedicated entirely to cables, I knew I needed to nab a copy.

KNITTED CABLE SOURCEBOOK

Norah’s latest book, “Knitted Cable Sourcebook,” is a collection of 152 stitch patterns and over a dozen garment and accessory patterns. A cable dictionary it is not – nor is it intended to be. The patterns and techniques are decidedly Norah’s, many appearing in print for the first time. As Norah writes in the Introduction:

“To my mind there can be no such thing as an all-encompassing encyclopedia of cables (as much as my publisher would have loved for this book to have been called an encyclopedia) because one volume can’t begin to contain all the cables in use already and all of the cables yet to be revealed by our imaginations. This book is intended to be both a resource for existing cable patterns and a jumping-off point for making new cable discoveries.”

The book is simultaneously accessible to newbies and challenging to advanced knitters – quintessential Norah. It starts off with the basics, including an overview of cable terminology, instructions on how to read and follow a cable chart, and troubleshooting tips (one of which Karen described here). This upfront section is worth the price of the book alone, as it so succinctly describes, in less than 20 pages, everything you really need to know to knit cables well.

The rest of the book is broken up into sections defined by complexity and motifs, starting with basic ropes, braids and horseshoes and eventually working towards the final chapter on “drawing” abstract or representational shapes with cables. At the end of each chapter are two or more garment patterns that incorporate cables and techniques covered in the preceding chapter.

But the most exciting part? Each garment pattern is accompanied with recommendations for cable substitutions using Norah’s SSE (Stockinette Stitch Equivalent) method. Each stitch pattern throughout the book is assigned an SSE number – basically, how many stockinette stitches are needed to achieve the same width as the cable. This system allows you to substitute any cable you like for other cables shown in Norah’s patterns – or heck, any pattern with cables in it. This is where this resource book really shines, as it enables any knitter to customize and design her own garment based on her own personal preferences.

Swatch of the Month: Norah's cables

THE SWATCH

While there are many, many stitch patterns in this book that pluck at my heartstrings, the one I was most eager to cast on was Fave, introduced in Chapter 5. The pattern is a distinctive grouping of four 2/2 crosses, which Norah writes is her go-to motif. And it’s easy to see why. It feels both classic and modern, basic and also totally unexpected. A panel of Fave could be easily extended into a scarf and be striking on its own, but any of these variations could be incorporated into a chunky cardigan with a shawl collar (like this one) and be the show-stopper winter cardigan of my dreams.

Since this was my first time playing with the motif, I started off with the first stitch pattern in the the chapter, “To & Fro Fave” (no. 110 on page 169). In this motif, alternating left and right crosses grow out of 2 x 2 ribbing and the column of cables is repeated four times to complete the panel. Every stitch pattern in Norah’s book includes both a cable chart and written description of the pattern. Even though I’m pretty comfortable reading a chart, having the written description was helpful as I knit the first couple of inches and became familiar with the pattern.

For the yarn, I chose Madelinetosh’s DK Twist in “Never” colorway. Amy sent me a couple skeins to try out (thanks, Amy!) and I’m really digging the yarn’s bounce and stitch definition, as well as this soft gray/green color. Reminds me of faded moss or lichen in the middle of winter.
—Jess Schreibstein

Swatch of the Month: Norah's cables

Yarn: Madelinetosh DK Twist in Never colorway
Needles: US 6 / 4mm metal needles
Gauge: 22.5 stitches / 31 rows = 4 inches in Fave cable chart

M E T H O D

For the Fave “To & Fro” cable chart, see page 169 in “Norah Gaughan’s Knitted Cable Sourcebook”

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Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This month Jess highlights one of the most fundamental reasons a knitter might knit a swatch — as the basis for a coming design!
—Karen

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

I’ve been working on a design for awhile. As I figure out the specifics, it’s kinda secret – okay, it’s totally secret. But while I can’t tell you what exactly it will become, I do want to share a big part of that development process with you, which begins with (you guessed it) a swatch. Actually, a lot of swatches.

THE PROCESS

When I come up with a knitted garment idea, it’s usually a conflation of several sources – inspiration I see on Pinterest and Instagram, as well as objects I see in the world. Sometimes, these might be actual garments or fabrics that spark an idea of how those elements could be executed differently. Other times, I find architectural elements, pattern and nature to be just as informative. I’ll collect a bunch of photos on my phone, in Pinterest, in my head – a vision board would be ideal for this – and then start sketching.

In designing this piece, I have a vision of the kind of fabric I want to create and work with. Imagine a woven fabric, smooth but a little nubbly. The fabric is stiff enough to provide some structure, but still retains a soft drape that will relax against the body. The yarn will be cream-colored (I’m clearly on a neutrals kick) and crisp to show some stitch definition. The right yarn also won’t have too much sheen, instead veering to a matte finish. To achieve that kind of look and weight, I imagined I would need a fingering or sport-weight yarn executed in some kind of slip-stitch pattern. I took a look in my stash to find some likely yarn contenders.

Now, to be clear, I’m not a professional knitwear designer. I don’t make a living from designing knitting patterns, and to date, I’ve only published one, the Beach Tank. So my creative process and approach are completely my own and informed by my knitting experience, conversations with established knitwear designers, and some math and common sense. They don’t reflect any “right” or “wrong” way to design a knitting pattern. I’m relatively new to this, so if you design your own knitting patterns (professionally or otherwise) I’d love to hear what your own process looks like in the comments!

THE CONTENDERS

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

TN Textile Mill: OUR yarn
I began swatching with the truly gorgeous OUR yarn, a mulberry silk noil yarn from Allison of TN Textile Mill (formerly Shutters & Shuttles). I fell in love with the texture and palette of this sport-weight yarn when I first spotted it on Instagram, and couldn’t get it out of my head. Over the summer, I ordered a few skeins to have on hand, and once this design began to come together, I reached for it immediately.

This might sound overly poetic, but this yarn feels organic and alive in your hands when you’re knitting with it. I feel that way sometimes about some wool yarns I’ve come across (the Hudson Valley Fibers yarn from my Rhinebeck post checks the box), but other cotton, silk or plant-based yarns I’ve worked with don’t always have that quality. I think it’s a combination of color, texture and some unpredictability in knitting that reminds you that you’re working with a product of a living, breathing organism. And those silky nubs!

When developing a stitch pattern that mimicked the look and feel of a woven fabric, I turned to the woven transverse herringbone stitch pattern of my previous Churro post, as well as the chevron pattern of Michele Wang’s Abbott (which I finished knitting earlier last year) for inspiration. I wanted to try a slip-stitch that I hoped, in scale, would look unrecognizable as a knitted fabric. On size US2 needles, I cast on an even number of stitches and worked the following:

Row 1 (RS): *Knit 1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in front; repeat to end
Row 2 (WS): Purl
Row 3: *Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in front, Knit 1; repeat to end
Row 4: Repeat Row 2

The result, unfortunately, was a no-go. The yarn didn’t have the density and structure I’m after, and the stitch pattern looks like a bunch of dash marks across a field of stockinette. With my next attempt, I would try a yarn with a little more elasticity, so it would form a tighter fabric more easily. I would also try slipping stitches on every row, not just on the right side.

. . .

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

Shibui: Staccato
Next up was another yarn I had in my stash, Shibui’s fingering-weight merino-silk blend, Staccato. Unlike the subtle sheen of the silk noil in OUR yarn, the silk in Staccato shimmers a little more brightly, likely a result of its tight, worsted-spun quality. When I held it together with Wool and the Gang’s Shiny Happy Cotton for my all-white beach tank, that shimmer was a perfect complement to the matte look of the cotton. Time to try it on its own.

On size US2 needles, I cast on an even number of stitches and worked the following:

Row 1 (RS): *Knit 1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in front; repeat to end
Row 2 (WS): *Purl 1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in back; repeat to end

I was pretty thrilled with the result, which got much closer to the woven look I wanted. But then I had this idea – what if I were to create a knit fabric on the bias? I think that concept bubbled up from some of my adventures in sewing earlier last year, specifically A Verb for Keeping Warm’s Tendril Dress, which is sewn on the bias. I haven’t sewn this dress yet, but I remember conversations with my grandmother about this pattern and the ripple effect that a bias drape could lend a garment. Sounded intriguing. Here’s what I did:

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

Cast on 2 stitches on size US2 needles.

Row 1 (RS): Increase 1 stitch by knitting front and back (KFB), Knit 1 (3 stitches on needle)
Row 2 (WS): Purl 1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in back, Purl 1
Row 3: K1, KFB, K1, KFB, K1 (5 stitches on needle)
Row 4: *Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in back, Purl 1; repeat from * once; P1
Row 5: K1, KFB, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in front, K1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in front, KFB, K1 (7 sts on needle)
Row 6: *P1, Slip 1 stitch purlwise with yarn held in back; repeat from * until 1 stitch remains; P1

It looks pretty messy, but here’s the gist – I increased 1 stitch at the beginning and end of each row on the right side, and alternated slipped stitches on the right and wrong sides to create a hatched, or woven look. Once the swatch became as large as I wanted, I began decreasing at the start and end of each right side row with K2tog or SSK, instead of increasing with KFB. Ta-da! A square swatch, knit on the bias.

There is still some tweaking to do, particularly on the edging. (Do I try a garter stitch edge? Or maybe finish the edges with rolled stockinette? Jury is still out.) But I feel like I’m really close to what I originally envisioned. The other plus was that the wrong side (lower photo) is just as beautiful as the right side (upper photo) – looks like a pebbly seed stitch knit on the diagonal. But I still wasn’t sold on the yarn. The Staccato has the fullness and stitch definition I was dreaming of, but the fabric didn’t look as matte as I hoped. I did some research and bought a skein of one more yarn to try.

. . .

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

Purl Soho: Linen Quill
Karen has gushed about Purl Soho’s Linen Quill before (here, here, oh, and also here), and I’m proudly adding my name to the Linen Quill Fan ClubTM. This fingering-weight blend of highland wool, alpaca and linen is remarkable. It has the elasticity of wool, the softness and halo of the alpaca, and the structure and subtle wiry quality of the additional linen. I loved knitting with it, and love the final swatch even more.

For this swatch, I followed the general slipped-stitch bias pattern above, but played around with the edging throughout, so you’ll see some irregularity on the edges in the photo. I also opted for Oatmeal Gray colorway, which on Purl Soho’s website looks like a scuffed-up cream (in the best sense), but actually is more of a true, light heather gray than a cream. For my final swatch, I’ll likely pick up a skein of Linen Quill in Heirloom White and give it a try. The only downside of this yarn is that it doesn’t have the same linear definition that the Staccato has, so I’m still undecided between the two. Do you all have a favorite?

At this rate, the pattern will be available in 2020… stay tuned!
—Jess Schreibstein

Swatch of the Month: Beginning a design

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Swatch of the Month: Latvian cheer

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EDITOR’S NOTE: My first exposure to Latvian mittens was when I won this amazing little boxed kit a few years ago. I don’t know much about Latvian mittens other than that I’d love to know more! So I’m especially happy about Jess digging in on the subject for her column this month—
—Karen

Swatch of the Month: Latvian cheer

For this month’s swatch, I wanted to do something festive. December is an intersection of many cultural and religious celebrations of light and color in the darkest month of the year (for the northern hemisphere, at least), and I thought this would be a perfect moment to look at knitting’s role in ceremony and celebration.

Back in college, I worked at a coffee shop owned by a Latvian woman. I didn’t really know much about the country, its people, or even where exactly Latvia was (in Eastern Europe somewhere, right? My international relations degree really strutting its stuff, guys). It wasn’t until I stumbled across Latvian and Estonian mittens for the first time as a knitter that I made the connection and picked up a copy of Lizbeth Upitis’ book “Latvian Mittens” to learn more about the region and its knitting traditions.

THE BALTIC REGION

The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania sit east of the Baltic Sea, to the immediate west of Russia, and quite close to Sweden and Finland. People of the region share common history and similar traditions, although regional dialects and tribal histories distinguish them. Latvians and Lithuanians are known as Baltic people, and their respective, archaic Indo-European languages are the only surviving Baltic languages. Despite these close ties, Lithuania generally identifies itself more strongly with its neighbors to the south in Central Europe, like Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Estonia, on the other hand, due to its linguistic and historical connections, strongly identifies with its Finnish neighbors to the north.

Although these linguistic and political differences have set them apart, the region shares a common history of being occupied and ruled by its neighbors for hundreds of years, most recently by the USSR. In 1989, more than two million people formed a human chain through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, called “The Baltic Way,” to peacefully demand independence from the Soviet Union. All three countries achieved independence in 1991 and later became members of NATO and the European Union. Today, the three countries are part of the Nordic-Baltic 8, or NB8, which includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. While these countries have been closely connected for centuries, their closest cooperation began with the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and continues today.

This brief historical overview serves as a reminder of the interconnectedness of this region, which of course affects its knitting and textile traditions. As I began riffling through images of Baltic knitting, embroidery, lacework and more, I couldn’t help but see the similarities in motifs and design from Latvian mittens to Fair Isle sweaters to Nordic stockings. And even though I’m a bit of a minimalist myself when it comes to knitting and my own wardrobe, I can’t help but want to cast on some brightly colored mittens or a complex colorwork cardigan when I look at these designs. I mean, c’mon.

Swatch of the Month: Latvian cheer

KNITTING AS CELEBRATION

Prior to the introduction of knitting, people in the region created fabric through a technique called nålebinding, also known as “knotless netting” or “needle looping.” This technique is estimated to predate knitting by 1,000 years! Instead of using two needles, the method required only one. Unlike crochet, it involved pulling through the full length of the working thread through each loop, which would make it difficult to unravel and adjust one’s work during the process. The finished work could be felted to make a more durable and cold-resistant fabric. If you’re interested in trying out the nålebinding process for yourself, there’s a tutorial in English here, or you can watch the process in action here.

Knitting likely migrated to the Baltic region during the Crusades, when knights brought the knowledge of knitting with them from the Middle East (Source: Nordic Knitting website). The oldest-known knitted object found in Estonia is the cuff of a mitten discovered in 1950 by archeologist Jüri Peets, which probably dates to the end of the thirteenth century. Other knitted textiles that have been discovered in the region include pattern knitting, indicating that more complex, two-color knitting has been practiced for a long time.

So, where do mittens come in? Aside from being highly functional and useful knitted objects, mittens in the Baltics also served as small capsules of information. The pattern, technique and colors in a pair of mittens could indicate where its wearer was from, and the patterns themselves could be full of symbols from archaic pagan mythology. A zig-zag, for example, represented the goddess Mara, whereas a sideway “S” represented an adder, a popular animal of the goddess Laima. Both motifs were and continue to remain popular in mitten design.

Latvian folk songs, or dainas, provide further clues about mittens’ role in ceremony. In 1880, Krisjanis Barons began to collect and document the folk songs of the Latvian people, a project he continued for the following 35 years of his life. Because of his work and dedication, nearly 36,000 dainas were preserved and provide a glimpse into the daily and ceremonial life of Latvians during that time. As seen in these folk songs, knit mittens were a critical part of weddings and were an opportunity for a young woman to display her skill and readiness for marriage. See this daina, written in the voice of a young woman eligible to be married:

Many mittens am I knitting
Putting in my dowry chest
When the rich girls have been taken,
Then will I come in their mind.

Young girls were taught to knit as young as four or five years old, and were knitting daily during or between their other tasks. By the time a girl had reached marrying age, she was expected to have accumulated a dowry chest full of over one hundred mittens and socks that were knit by herself and other women in the family. See this daina that’s written in the voice of a young suitor:

Good evening, maiden’s mother
As you see my hands are freezing;
All the while my mitten knitter
Snugly in your room is sitting.

During the wedding celebrations, which lasted three to four days, the bride gifted pairs of mittens to just about everyone. This included the minister, the groom’s parents, the driver of the wedding carriage, all brothers, sisters and remaining relatives, and the kitchen helpers. Even the barn animals received symbolic offerings of mittens, which were later retrieved by a member of the family. The married couple ate their wedding meal with mittened hands. Before entering the threshold of her new home, the bride laid down a pair of mittens, hung mittens above the hearth, tied them to doors. When I first read this in my copy of Upitis’ book, I couldn’t help but think of these mittens as magical totems, blessing the newly married couple and their community.

There is so much more I could write here about Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian mittens, but instead, I’ll leave you with some resources to explore further. I’ve heard only good things about the book Mittens of Latvia by Maruta Grasmane, which I haven’t read myself but would likely be a good companion for Upitis’ book. Mary Neal Meador’s quest for an authentic Estonian mitten at the Mason-Dixon Knitting blog is definitely worth a read, as is Donna Druchunas’ guest post about knitting in Lithuania on Hélène Magnússon’s The Icelandic Knitter blog. And be sure to check out the eye candy that is the incredible knitting from the Estonian island of Muhu, as shared through the eyes of Kate Davies on her blog here and here. Adding this to my Christmas wish list, please and thank you.

Swatch of the Month: Latvian cheer

THE SWATCH

When it comes to picking a yarn for a project, I’ve gotten accustomed to searching for that elusive, perfectly woolly and perfectly crisp je ne sais quoi yarn – and I often overlook some of the most readily available and solidly good yarn on the market. Quince amd Co., case in point. Of all the projects I’ve knitted to date, the ones knit in Quince were a delight to knit and have reliably held up to time and wear. Plus, for an American-sourced and produced wool yarn, Quince’s broad selection is so well priced and comes in a generous (and ever-expanding) palette of colors.

For this swatch, I originally picked a pattern that called for three colors. I chose Quince & Co.’s fingering-weight Finch in Canvas, Poppy and Barolo colorways, but after ripping and redoing the swatch twice with dismal puckering and pulling, I admitted that my colorwork needed some practice. I switched to a two-color chart instead, using the Canvas and Poppy. I really love how the warm cream of the new Canvas color and the bright, orange-red of the Poppy play off of each other.

I also knitted this swatch in the round, and with a little more time probably could have finished a mitten. Since the swatch is so small and my colorwork skills still a little rough, I figured it would be easier in the long run to just knit it in the round rather than knit an “in-the-round” swatch, as I did for my Icelandic lopi swatch. While working the chart, I trapped long floats using a technique I learned from Andrea Rangel during the Cowichan vest knitalong last year, which is a method I’ve come to rely on to prevent uneven tension in my colorwork.
—Jess Schreibstein

Yarn: Quince & Co. Finch in Canvas and Poppy colorways
Needles: US 1 / 2.25mm double-pointed needles
Gauge: 18 stitches / 20 rows = 2 inches in colorwork chart

Swatch of the Month: Latvian cheer

M E T H O D

For the colorwork chart, see Chart 29 in Lizbeth Upitis’ book, “Latvian Mittens.”

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