Britt's Blog

When I was in junior high, Swatch watches were the big thing. Everybody was wearing them. Rich and popular kids wore several on each arm. It was madness.

It is probably surprising to no one that I did not have one.

One could argue that this has contributed to the swatch-knitting aversion of my early days, but I have finally learned my lesson. I have weird, very loose gauge when working with most fibers, so I really do have to swatch to figure out what needles to use. Following the recommendation in the pattern is almost never going to work.

But then, there are fun swatches, like this one:

The yarns are Stroll (formerly Essentials) from Knit Picks: Cartoons hand-painted and Ash Tweed.

The socks are inspired by my colleague Katie’s awesome mittens, which I am totally obsessed with, and the book Knit One Below, which I picked up at the library on a lark a while back.

The swatch was worked in the round, so all rows are RS rows.

The bottom pattern on the swatch used the Knit One Below K1B stitch, alternating with regular knit stitches: *K, K1B* with MC for one row, *K1B,K* with CC for the next. This creates excellent vertical stripes that look especially striking with the handpainted yarn.

The middle section was an attempt to reproduce Katie’s mittens with K, *K1B, K3* with MC, followed by *K3 K1B* with CC. It makes an interesting pattern, but nothing too exciting.

It is the top section, which is K *Slip 1, K3* with MC and *K3 Slip 1* with the CC that reproduces the excellent raised columns that I fell in love with on Katie’s mittens.

Unfortunately, the slip-stitched fabric is pretty tight, as the Slip 1 has the effect of tightening the neighbors of that stitch on the previous row quite a bit, whereas the K1B technique leads to a much stretchier fabric which might be more appropriate for socks.

So, I’m not thrilled by the middle section, but I’m going to have to swatch some bigger pieces before I can decide between the bottom and the top.

What do you think?