Over Thanksgiving weekend I decided to celebrate having all my Christmas knitting done. There was a box of Knitpicks Andean Treasure baby alpaca in the corner calling my name. 16 skeins of Mystery Heather (dark gray) and two skeins of Hot Red Heather.
Since I needed to swatch the anticipated gray sweater in the round, I decided to knit a hat. And since I only had two skeins of the red, I decided to knit the hat out of the red, thereby breaking a basic rule of swatching:
Always swatch with the color that's going to be used because different colors knit up at different gauges.
I had fun knitting the hat, so I finished off the weekend by swatching my plan for the neckline. In red. Breaking the same rule.
A few evenings later when I was tired and not thinking clearly (there always has to be an excuse when stupidity is admitted publicly), I decided that even though my swatches hadn't been washed, I could at least cast on the lower ribbing in gray and knit for a while before going to bed.
The gray yarn is nothing like the red. It's much fuzzier. Knitting it on the same size needle, #3, the knitting was so tight I could hardly move the stitches along. The cabled ribbing didn't show through the fuzz.
But being tired and brain dead, I kept going until all the pulling separated the needle from the cord. Another rule of knitting:
When something feels awful in your hands, especially something as wonderful as alpaca, just STOP knitting and replan the project.
After some sleep, I admitted the gray isn't going to knit anything like the red. It isn't going to knit at the same gauge. I need to use a needle several sizes larger. I need to knit a new set of swatches. And, I need to plan a different sweater to make this yarn and me happy.
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9 comments:
Thank you for providing an opportunity to learn from your experience. ;-) (even though I know that you know better.)
I wish I could say we would learn from your experience, but experience tells me that doesn't always work. I always think I can break the rules. Somehow I think I'm special, but it often comes back and bites me!
I had no idea!! Why are the colors a different weight? I would break all of your rules, for sure!! And be in big trouble...
I also recently learned how different colors knit at a different gauge after knitting a second Thorpe hat with the same but diffeent color yarn. The second hat would fit a giant.(LOL)
heh! i never swatch!
my needle did same thing ~ a drop of super glue ~ shove it back in & wahlah!
I had no idea either! Thanks for the enlightenment at your expense...
What a wonderful blog, sharing your experience for the benefit of your readers, you make learning a natural part of reading your blog and enjoyable to boot.
I had no idea that could happen with different colors of yarn. I love the hat pattern.
I have heard that KnitPicks is very good about replacing needles when they separate like this if you give them a call. (Not that the replacement does any good until it gets there!)
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