Swatching madness

You all know I like to talk a lot about swatching. This post may make some of you twitch. But bear with me through this one, and then the future post about my Folded Pullover will maybe help to sell you a bit on extensive swatching to get the right gauge.

Amy Christoffers’ newest pattern, Stonecutters Cardigan, is super awesome, and Amy and I were going back and forth about finding the perfect yarn for it. The pattern calls for Berroco Blackstone Tweed, which is a lovely yarn, but I try to find a different yarn for most patterns for a variety of reasons. Since this pattern is heavily cabled, I decided to try out a few different yarns.

That’s right, I swatched four times for one sweater. Four different yarns. All on size 7 needles, all using the same three cable patterns (one of them getting messed up in a bit because I momentarily forgot how to count).

Swatching can be a Goldilocks-esque tale. This swatch, in Cascade 220, came out too small, which would have required a lot of math on my part that I wasn’t willing to do.

This swatch, in the called for Blackstone Tweed, was also a little too light, coming in at one stitch more than the suggested gauge.

I also used this as an opportunity to try out a new-to-me yarn, Briggs and Little Heritage, and I didn’t measure the gauge on this swatch because I felt that the yarn was just a little to rustic for my tastes, and didn’t come in colors I immediately loved. It’s a nice crunchy wool, but not what I wanted.

Finally I tested out this pattern in Tahki Tara Tweed, and my stitch gauge was absolutely right. My row gauge was a little bit off, but Amy assures me this is not as important as the row gauge and easily compensated.

So I ordered the yarn from WEBS last week, and I’m still waiting for them to ship it, but I’m really excited to get cracking on this awesome cardigan, especially since my Folded pullover ended up a bit disastrous. More on that later.