of learning....and knitting.
Just because I finished with Harvard doesn't mean that I still don't have plenty to learn. As the school year was winding down last December, I started looking at my stitch dictionaries. I began thinking of combining patterns together, thinking oh wouldn't that be nice together with this, this could make a nice scarf, this would be great for a sweater...one thing led to another and I realized I would have to the dreaded very necessary swatch process.
After jotting down some initial thoughts about what I was looking for (I decided on a lace scarf) I went into the yarn room and pulled out some good old plain 2 ply lace weight in white. Got comfy on the couch and started working on the motif to make sure I understood the chart.
For some reason I had in mind fall, leaves and acorns. Possibly because I was staring at squirrel ornament that a friend gave me that is holding an acorn....
A short time later I had these to work with
The acorn motif would be both on the edging and in the center of the scarf. I was pleased, I liked how substantial the patterns looked and doing the math for the width I wanted was pretty straight forward.
Keeping with the fall theme, I went back into the yarn room and stared at my lace stash (of which I still have to put most of on Ravelry) and found a color that said fall to me, a heathered red-orange lace alpaca.
The soft halo of the alpaca would add a nice warmth to the scarf. I was off and running, over the holidays I got several repeats done.
And then it sat...and sat, and sat in the bottom of the WIP bag. I finished other things, would look at pick it up, and put it back in the bag. Well then I went to VK LIve a few weeks ago and took some lace classes there. One with Anne Hanson from Knitspot, during which Anne talked briefly about the importance of the drape of the yarn and the weight of the yarn when creating patterns. She had swatches out for examples and then the lightbulb went off! I made a mental note to myself to look at my swatches WITH the start of the scarf when I got home.
After class I went down to the marketplace in search of what I then knew I needed to get to make it work..and I knew exactly where I was headed.
Upon inspection of the two together...I realized that what appealed to me about the swatch was the density of the leaves and acorns, and in this thinner laceweight, albeit 2 ply that was missing. I also took a look at the patterns and decided that on the scarf scale that I was working with, that maybe it was too lacy (yes I know unthinkable) for what i was trying to achieve.
Stitch dictionaires came back out, I still wanted to use the leaf pattern and I still wanted a fall-ish theme. I found what I wanted, recast on....
I am much happier with the results and since these pictures were taken the scarf has grown considerably more.
Lesson learned - when swatching for a design, pay attention to your yarn. The weight, the fiber, even the needle size all affect the end product. Just don't swatch in spare yarn to make sure you get the pattern directions. Swatch in yarn that you are going to use. Also, be ready to accept that your concept may not work the way you want and sometimes change is good.
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