The Knitting Fiend

I planned to knit four swatches at our group meeting, I knit two. (I tend to gab which interferes with knitting. )

Here they are:

The pink swatch is Taiga yarns “Alana Alpaca”. Everyone at knit guild loved this yarn– and so does my cat. In fact, The General loves this yarn more than any I have ever knit. I don’t know if it’s the color or the Alpaca.

Anyway, I cast on 26 stitches, and reserved 4 for the selvedge. The 22 stitches in stockinette ended up measuring 3 3/4″ across; that works out to about 23 st=4″; I also got 31 rows/ inch. The yarn is very soft while knitting, and very soft after hand washing with Eucalan wool wash in warmish water.

As you can see, I also tested this in a sort of lacy pattern. You can see the “right side” of the lace on the swatch on the right hand side; that’s the one showing the purl side of the stockinette. I think the lace pattern would look even nicer if I stretched while blocking– but that would distort the stockinette so I didn’t do that.

I also knit a swatch out of the cotton; I’ve hand washed it and it’s still air drying. (Cotton takes a long time to dry.) I knit a stockinet and a garter stitch portion for this swatch, because I figure both are likely to be popular stitches for summer cardigans, dishcloths and baby blankets.

The gauge before washing? Well, I knit it at 18st=4″ and 26 rows=4″ measured before laundering. I washed in warmish water using Eucalan wool wash and the swatch is drying. Given this treatment, it does not appear to shrink or bleed. (Although, I should wait until the swatch is dry before I really claim it didn’t shrink.)

Now, as it happens, I think people who use this to knit sweaters are likely to hand-wash. However, I suspect harried mothers who’ve stayed up all night with crying infants or people who knit dishcloths might want to know how it stands up to machine washing and drying. That means, I figure knitters need to know whether that’s going to absolutely ruin the item. So, even though machine washing and drying is not recommended by the manufacturer, next time I wash undershirts, I’m going to torture the swatch by placing it in a hand wash bag, washing it and letting it tumble dry.

I do this with all my cotton swatches. Because, frankly, I want to know. Anyway, if you can’t torture your swatches, what can you torture?