i have discovered i am a loosey goosey knitter.
and pray how did i discover such an interesting fact about myself?
because i swatched!!!
gasp, shock, horror!
and pray why did i swatch when i said i would never a swatcher be?
because i am knitting a garment!!!
gasp, shock and could quite possibly be a lot of horror (only time will tell)
it was high time i pulled up my knitty knee socks, stepped into the grown up world of knitty nice things and tackled a knitty project with the intention of wearing it with knitty pride.
and so i rustled around for my old Rowan look book and stared once again at the most peachiest of sweater vests ever to be created. it is fair aisle and it is knitted with tweedy woolly wool yarn. six years on, my sweater vest loving heart still skips a beat at its peachiness...
so first off, i immediately decided not to set myself up to fail and removed all fair aisle from the pattern. voila! a nice plain sweater vest for wearing over floral handmade frocks. oh yes Tif, i thought to myself, it will be grand indeedy! i saw black tweedy flecky knitty goodness in my cogs, and thus i proceeded with a yarn of such like. only to discover what i had discovered many moons before but wished to ignore as my wish for a black tweedy flecky knitty sweater vest was greater. i do not knit with good old rustic woolly wool yarn. oh woe is me i thought upon my ride home from stitch circle, and then a little inkling of a plan appeared. well my plan said, perhaps a tweedy speckly lovely knitty-ness will not be yours but surely upon all surelies some form of sweater vest can.
thus i turned to what is now 'my old faithful' yarn, which i used to make my hats of recent weeks.
tis a hand dyed merino wool by Madelinetosh (vintage worsted weight). it is so soft, no fiber issues for moi and almost has a cotton like feel to it. now of course, this comes with a pretty price upon its head but i concluded my sweater vest was not the most largest of garments and thus, i could afford to splash out a little. so i did. but not after i had taken a scrap of left over yarn from my vintage rose coloured hat and swatched. (gasp, shock, horror... yes yes, we get it)
oh how i swatched like a pro
and afterwards i marveled at how telling a swatch can be. my loosey goosey ways meant i needed to drop down a needle size and then after that i studied the pattern quite closely, in fact tres closely for i confess, Rowan patterns and me do not see eye to eye and decided, why would i knit my sweater vest flat when i could knit it in the round. so this in turn caused a bit of (a lot of) mental thinking on my behalf to visualize what needs to be done in the round that was once done in the flat and off i went on my merry knitty way...
till yesterday that is, with two thirds of the fabby deep waist band nearly done, my yarny buddy Veronika, (of whom i have mentioned before and of whom i have told, knows knitty knowledge like no other i have come across), pointed out when you use more than one skein of hand dyed yarn in a project there is a definite obvious line between each skein. hence my little sweater vest would have blocks of colour going up it where blocks of colour are not wished for.
oh how my knitty heart sank, and i believe it sank even lower when Veronika told me, its fixable by working with two skeins at once, alternating skeins every two rows. really? really. darn and dash it, i just want to knitty knit my way, around and around without having to think, but think i must and think i will, for i am perhaps more determined then ever before, to boldly go where my knitty soul has never gone before and come back, wearing a wearable knitty sweater vest, no colour blocks in sight and (having given up donkeys years ago) finally, once and for all conquered a rowan knitting pattern.
