September 2010
So I needed to make a gauge swatch for a sweater which is to be knitted in the round. Maggie Righetti has an ingenious method for doing just that* but to a simple creature like me, the obvious solution seemed to be to make something small and tubular, such as these.
The picot edging is achieved through making a series of eyelets and then folding them in half and making a seam. That was a first for me, and it works very well with mittens, which need to fit snugly around the wrist and fingers.
Cascade 220 isn't all that widely available in the UK, but ravelry has more projects made from this yarn than any other. I absolutely loved using it. *The main factor which makes in the round tension differ from knit flat tension is the fact that with flat knitting you are required to work on the wrong side of the fabric as well as the right side. In stocking stitch this translates into having to purl every other row, and apparently few people have the same tension purling as they do knitting.
To circumvent this, one option is to make a flat tension square knitting every row (which gives you garter stitch) and measure the gauge of that reassuring yourself that had you been knitting in the round all along it would have come out as stocking stitch. Which is true, but there's something about that technique which makes me uncomfortable, and besides it's not easy to measure tension over garter stitch.
Maggie Righetti suggests using a circular needle to make the tension square flat and after knitting the first row rather than turning it, breaking the yarn, pushing the stitches back to the other end, joining the yarn back in again and knitting across again, into the front of the square. And so on until it's a useful size. I haven't tried this yet, but it struck me as very very clever indeed.
Pattern: Susie's Reading Mitts by Janelle Masters
Yarn: Cascade 220 Heathers
Amount: 1 skein
Colourway: 9448 Green
Needles: 3.75mm
Size: Medium
On ravelry: here
"Maggie Righetti suggests using a circular needle to make the tension square flat and after knitting the first row rather than turning it, breaking the yarn, pushing the stitches back to the other end, joining the yarn back in again and knitting across again, into the front of the square."
ReplyDeleteActually, you don't even need to break the yarn -- I just slide my stitches to the other end and bring my yarn right around (almost like I was making i-cord, except I don't pull it that tightly). Then when I've made my swatch long enough, I snip up that row of "ladders" in the back and voila! Flat swatch!
Oh, that's a good point - thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of either of these techniques and will be using it from know on. Thanks for the tip!
ReplyDeleteThose mitts are stunningly beautiful. An instant fave.
ReplyDelete