I’ve talked about swatching before. For most knitters this usually refers to knitting the stitch pattern in a design they intend to make, using the needles stated in the pattern to check that their tension is the same as the designers, and that the finished item will have the intended measurements. Many knitters will make this swatch as small as possible, if knitting one at all, feeling that it’s a waste of time and just holding them up from getting started.
For a knitwear designer, swatching is so much more than this. For me, it’s a time to play and dive deep into knitting possibilities. Trying out different stitch patterns and combinations of stitch patterns, sometimes trying out different needle sizes to find the perfect one to give the best fabric and experimenting with combinations of colours. If I’ve been given specific yarn to use before a design is finalised, then I’ll find out how different stitch patterns behave with that yarn and what the fabric is like once blocked. This can involve swatches that are really quite big. Thanks have to go to my City & Guilds tutor, Loraine, here who always said, “Swatch big – it’ll give you better information”.
Last week I showed you the three gorgeous colours of McIntosh BFL 4ply yarn I’m using for a new design and told you that James always kindly supplies me with extra yarn for swatching. My current swatch for this design is pinned out now – and it’s over 60cm long and nearly 60cm wide at its widest point! Swatching big indeed. I want to see how the fabric behaves in the shape I’m intending to use, how it hangs and what the edges do.
With other designs when there is no set yarn, other than one or two suggested yarn weights, I might take a different approach. I’m also working on a design like this at the moment. For this design my swatches will be tried out in a variety of yarns (different fibres, different dye styles such as solid or semi-solid colours, variegated and striped) to see how the different yarns work with different stitch patterns. Some stitch patterns can be completely lost in very ‘busy’ yarn. Ideally, for this design, I’d like to choose a stitch pattern that will work with as many yarns as possible – and the only way to find this out is by swatching – knitting the same stitch patterns in different yarns to see what the results are.
And although I may try out a large number of stitch patterns for a design when I only need one or two, this is not ever wasted time or yarn. I’ll often discover a stitch pattern or combo that is great, but just doesn’t work for the design at hand and I can ‘bank’ it for a later one! I also continue to learn.
Thinking about this has led me to look back at one of (about a dozen) lever arch files from my City & Guilds course in Hand Knit Textiles. Experimentation was a key part of the learning and I loved it. I would often knit half a dozen or so swatches in the morning before driving to work. For example, knitting different stitch patterns with the same cast-on, then changing the cast-on and knitting the same set of stitch patterns with that cast-on helped me to understand which stitch patterns and cast-on techniques work well together, making notes on each one as well for future reference (and to fulfil the course requirements!). This is page one of three for this exercise!
Another early task was to knit a stocking stitch swatch with different selvedges (edge stitches) to understand how these affected the fabric.
I’ve kept all these files as they contain so much useful information and knowledge – including lots of stitch patterns I developed myself. Almost a reference library, if you like.
As well as swatching (playing) this week I’ve also made some decent progress on my new cardigan and the yarn is working much better with this design. It may not look like much yet, but this is almost two full skeins of DK yarn!
The body is worked in one piece to start with and then the construction gets really interesting. I’ll be sure to take pics once it develops further.
That’s all from me for today. I’ll tell you all about how Stollen & Wolle went next week. K x