swatching for timberline

I was talking with sweet Jennifer in Asheville this weekend about knitting, and life, and husbands. And knitting for husbands! The fun (and challenging) thing about knitting for my husband is that not being a knitter, he has no idea what I can and cannot do. He sees a knitted thing and says, "Can you make me that?" As is the case with Timberline. He saw it in my favorites on Ravelry and loved it. A richly cabled, seamed, shawl collared cardigan. Have I ever knitted a cardigan before? Nope. Have I ever picked up for a collar before? Nope. Have I ever knit a seamed sweater before? Nope. And yet, here we are, and I'm swatching for Timberline. 

The swatch that I knit took me nearly an hour, so this baby is going to be a marathon! We chose Knit Picks Wool of the Andes for its huge color selection and affordability (and they answered all of my questions about where their wool comes from, which made my ethical side very happy). This color is "Opal Heather" and it has a lovely variegation and has been pretty easy to knit with. This pattern I took from the back chart, and should have probably knit the whole piece, you'll notice that its uneven as I omitted one of the side cables that frame the center cable. I started down a needle size from the recommended and still came out to 25 x 4" instead of 31 x 4". So I will be going down at least another needle size in a second swatch, if not 2 sizes. After listening to Julie Hoover's interview on Woolful on my roadtrip, I'm thinking it might have something to do with the material needles I'm using. I'm pretty dedicated to my Addi clicks, but maybe it's worth trying another material?

I still have a tumultuous relationship with swatching. I know I need to do it, and I for sure want the garments I knit to fit! But I sometimes just can't wait to get started and swatching for a piece like this takes much longer than I'd like. Any tips from master swatchers out there to help make this process any easier? 

Swatching for Gable

My two big projects I was working on so far this year, Hansel and my husband's socks, both came to a conclusion within a week of each other in March. I got this sudden drive to stop staring at all of this lovely O-Wool I got for my birthday and start knitting with it. This particular yarn was being saved for a special purpose, my first sweater! Needless to say it was a race to finish both of these other projects, because I really wanted to be able to devote all of my time and energy to this one project. 

After reading Karen Templer's post on sweaters for first-timers, I knew that I either wanted to do a top-down or bottom-up seamless construction for my first foray into sweaters. And after knitting Skiff this past fall, I was in love with the detail that Brooklyn Tweed put into all of their patterns. So Gable, a classic and gorgeous pullover by Hannah Fettig of Knitbot and Knit.fm (another one of my major obsessions) was an obvious choice. 

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Working with the O-Wash Fingering so far has been a DREAM. This yarn is amazing, and I don't see my obsession with fingering weight yarn going anywhere any time soon, and I absolutely love that I've found a yarn that is as soft as superwash is known to be, but that got there using an organic process. WIN. I knit a 4 x 4 swatch in stockinette as instructed, and pre-blocking it came out slightly too small, at 26 stitches to the inch across instead of 24. The row gauge was also slightly taller than the pattern called for. Post-blocking, it came out to exactly 24 stitches to the inch, and the same row gauge. Thinking logically, I knew that the difference was small enough that it wouldn't make sense to go down a whole needle size, and that I'd just need to be aware of the total length of the sweater as I went. 

The only other concern I had before casting on was an instruction to alternate skeins while knitting, as the yarn was susceptible to tonal variation. Looking at the skeins all lined up, I didn't see any evidence to suggest this, but knowing that I was about to invest so many hours in this project, I emailed Jocelyn at O-Wool directly to ask. She suggested that I try knitting my swatch with yarn from two of the skeins I purchased, and if I didn't see any difference between the two, that it might be ok to forgo the alternating. Well I tried it, and the skeins all seem to be pretty identical, so I decided not to alternate. Hopefully that won't prove to be a stupid decision later, only time will tell.

I cast on, and this great sweater saga has begun! If you are interested in following along on Instagram as well, you can find me @abbygoodknits, and with the hashtag #abbyknitsgable. 

Have a great Tuesday!