Geeking up the Cables and Os.

So I actually started this swatching process a while ago, but it took me a while to get my, um, self together and post this. This was my gauge swatch for Cables and Os (I have started on the real one, in black, by this time) and it was a really educational experience.


For one thing, I made the swatch about 8 inches square (a little bit bigger, actually) and this gave me an accurate gauge as well as a good feeling for how I would like the finished fabric. It grew on me. I confess that I was not all that excited about the yarn in the store, but it is knitting up into a lovely fabric. Too bad it doesn't photograph well in black. (The gauge yarn is a sage color both because I bought all the black for my sweater and because I liked this color but they didn't have enough of it for a sweater. The actual color is somewhere between the light and dark pictures that I took-- stupid camera.)




If you look at the close-up, however, you can see that when I unknit the twisted stitches incorrectly, it really showed up due to the fabulous stitch definition of this yarn. Can you see my goofs? The swatching paid off again, because I was able to identify a big stumbling block before I was knitting across a zillion stitches. I eventually figured it out, but it took a while. (Hint: you have to un-knit a twisted stitch out of the opposite loop to all of the other stitches you are unknitting. It's really hard to describe but easy when you see it.)


I identified another stumbling block: my edge with the eyelets on it was ruffling out. Since you use this edge naked, with nothing picked up and knitted along it, for the buttonholes, this was not going to cut it. I fixed this problem by slipping every first stitch on each end and this is working out dandy on the real thing, which is about 5" from the cast on edge right now.


I was a little too antsy to wash this before I started the real sweater, but the swatch is sitting in my laundry basket right now and I am washing it tomorrow. I am doing a cold water wash and flat dry, so I am not expecting it to shrink too much in width, but I can at least see how much it shrinks in length and adjust the distance to the armhole divide accordingly (I do not have the figure for cropped sweaters!)