Finished object file: Crag hat | Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

School is back and I'm going to aim to get back into the swing of things. I must confess that I do find the balance between blogging about knitting and actually knitting hard. When on the kinder days I only get a couple of hours completely kid free during Miss L's nap I often choose to knit rather than blog because I have so much knitting I want to get through. However, since I keep starting new projects I don't think that status is going to change any time soon, so today I'm going to keep the needles aside and update the blogosphere about one of my latest finished objects.

After asking my friends and readers to help me choose between the Bartek and Crag hat patterns to make for my husband as an anniversary present (you can read about that here) I went with popular opinion and knit the Crag.

I wanted to use up the charcoal Debbie Bliss Cashmerino from my stash but after making two swatches with the aran (heavy 10ply) weight yarn I was starting to lack confidence in my choice. Using 4mm needles for the main pattern was still slightly off gauge but I didn't want to go any smaller because my hands were finding it uncomfortable knitting such heavy yarn on small needles. I kind of fudged it because I rationalised that if I kept my tension tighter for the actual knit and because the Hubs does have a bit of a big head I think I can get away with it in the end.

For the actual knit I started on 3.25mm needles for the ribbing and used a crochet cast on that my dear friend Jenny (Tatterz on Ravelry) taught me. I was leaving this present to the last minute so I decided to skip the tubular cast on because I just wanted to get onto it rather than fiddle with a third needle size and learning a new technique. 

Once I got going into the main body of the hat it was pretty easy to memorise the pattern and it would have been a really enjoyable knit if it didn't hurt my hands. I found I could only do about one set of the pattern repeat before I needed to rest my hands. 

In the end I didn't finish it in time for our anniversary but I did have it done for our time away in Marysville. The Hubs wore it when we went up Lake Mountain to take the kids tobogganing and he said it was perfectly snug and at times he had to take it off because it made him too hot. All credit for that goes to the beautiful cashmere and merino blend of the yarn. You can't go past good fibre when you want warmth.

My latest lesson that I have learnt after knitting this Brooklyn Tweed design and also the Rosebud hat is that I should substitute with either a light worsted or even a DK weight yarn rather than use aran. I have never used Brooklyn Tweed's Shelter yarn for which both these hats were designed for and I hope one day to get the chance to use it but for the time being I am definitely going to select more carefully when substituting for future BT projects.

How I got converted to being a gauge swatch knitter

My original swatch for the Maeve pattern.

We're still battling illness (I know whinge whinge...it's unending) so I'm skipping 'What to knit Wednesday' again, but I don't want to give up on this blog so I'm writing about some of my current thoughts on gauge instead.

For the uninitiated a gauge swatch or tension square is what knitters are meant to knit before beginning a project. The swatch is a way for the knitter to test that their knitting tension will match the suggested tension or gauge of the pattern. Every pattern will list how many stitches and rows will make up a certain area of knitted fabric. Sometimes patterns give a 1" gauge, sometimes they list 4" and for metric it'll be 10 cm of fabric. If gauge is followed accurately the end project will theoretically be the exact size measurements that the pattern designed it to be and that is the main reason people say it is important to check gauge when knitting.

I generally have been a naughty knitter/ lazy knitter and avoided knitting gauge swatches in the past. I restarted my knitting life knitting a blanket for my baby girl and then clothes for the kids. I personally didn't feel too concerned by what size these items ended up being as long as they were generous enough to get a good amount of wear by the growing little bods. Whenever I buy kids clothes I always go big because my motto is, "kids grow." I didn't even measure the kids before I knit and just went by the suggested age size; which is really bad of me because my kids have very slight builds for their ages. 

Other reasons I avoided swatching was because I usually tried to knit with the yarns that the pattern suggested. This sometimes ended up with me sourcing yarns from the US and paying the hefty international postage rates. When I didn't knit with the suggested yarn I would still stick to the same yarn weight and just hoped that it would come out the same. I would also check up on Ravelry other knitters who had substituted with the same yarn I was using and just work off their suggestions and modifications, so if they went down a needle size I followed suit. 

For my recent personal items I also chose not to swatch because I knit things where gauge wasn't really that important. When knitting a shawl, having a different gauge doesn't impact the fit of the garment because it's just something to drape over the shoulders. Even my recently finished Moto Vest didn't really have strict gauge requirements because it was a drapey open vest design.

In my mind checking gauge was only something important if I was making something that I needed to fit in a particular way and since I didn't really do projects like that I was going to keep skipping that step.

Here are my pins mark out the 4" square.

However, in my last post I mentioned that I was allowing myself a little 'hit' of the gorgeous The Fibre Company's Canopy Worsted yarn by knitting a gauge swatch for the Maeve shrug. I love handling the yarn while I was knitting my little square of stockinette but when I took out the ruler to check my gauge I was off and even after blocking the square I was still off. What I got was 19 sts and 27 rows = 4" rather than the 18 sts and 26 rows that the pattern listed. What this means is now I need to knit a new gauge swatch with larger needles and then block it and check gauge again, before I can allow myself to get started on this project.

So, why the change of heart on gauge swatching?

1) I really love this pattern and yarn and I want to make it perfectly. To do justice to this pattern and the yarn I really need to respect it and treat it properly.

2) Knitting the little swatch gave me a little taster of this soft yarn and I couldn't resist going to it and patting it while I had laid it out to block. I recently listened to the Clara Parkes (The Yarn Whisperer) interview on the Pom Pom Magazine podcast and she mentioned that she has a little swatch of some of her favourite yarn that she carries around in her handbag and she will touch it every now and then when she's grabbing stuff out of her bag. I can see myself doing that with this yarn; I just love it so much.* 

3) I also recently listened to an old knit.fm podcast episode where Pam Allen and Hannah Fettig discussed gauge**. They carefully explained why knitting gauge swatches cannot be skimped on and I learned some really interesting things from them. I learnt that every knitter's gauge is different and that gauge is affected not only by the knitter's style and tension but also the needles you knit with and the most obvious one, the yarn being used. Pam even stressed that the same yarns but of a different batch could still yield a different gauge to one another. Now that really surprised me and has given me a much deeper understanding of the complexities of gauge.

Cast on for another 6" square

I'm off to knit another swatch for the Maeve Shrug on 5mm needles. What are your thoughts on gauge? Have you struggled with getting the gauge right on your projects? What tips do you have for swatching and preparing to knit a cherished pattern?

*Ok, I'm totally disregarding the fact that I am starting to sound like a crazy yarn lady.

**This podcast episode is well worth listening to: http://knit.fm/blog/2013/10/2/episode-one-gauge