What fabric are you trying to create?
One of the things I love about knitting, is that as the knitter, you’re literally making the fabric, (and manipulating it at the same time).
Unlike in sewing, where you start with a flat piece of fabric and remove parts of it to create a garment (or bag, or whatever). Knitting starts with thin air, and some string – you get to create the fabric from scratch.
Each time you knit, you’re creating fabric that has never been created before.
This means if you don’t think about & plan your fabric, you get a (not always awesome) surprise.
I love lace weight yarn, I knit shawls in it, and I knit sweaters in it, but that doesn’t mean I want the same fabric for both types of projects.
I like my sweater fabric open and airy. I like my shawl fabric a little denser, with excellent stitch definition. And I like both my sweaters and my shawls to be drapy – which is why I use lace yarns (but that’s a whole other post.)
For a sweater, I knit lace weight yarn on fairly large needles.
For a shawl, I knit that same yarn on much smaller needles.
A lace weight yarn I’d knit on a US 2 (2.75mm) needle for a shawl, I’d knit on a US 4 (3.5mm) or US 5 (3.75mm) needle for a sweater.
Example!
“Ordo” is a lace shawl, knit with 2 strands of lace weigh yarn held together, on a US 5 (3.75mm) needle, while my No So Straightforward Basic Purple Pullover is also knit with 2 strands of lace weight yarn held together, but I knit that on a US 9 (5.5mm) needle.
Another example!
“Tumbling Deco” is a lace shawl, knit with 1 strand of lace weight yarn, on a US 2 (2.75mm) needle, while my Boring Black Sweater is knit with 1 strand of lace weight yarn, on a US 4 (3.5 mm) needle.
This is because I want my shawl fabric denser than my sweater fabric.
Denser stockinette = crisper lace work.
And I want my shawls need to show off intricate lace patterns.
When you’re creating your fabric, do you want…
dense fabric? drapy fabric? loose fabric? flowing fabric? chunky fabric? thin fabric? textured fabric? smooth fabric? open fabric? etc. etc.
Basically, it all boils down to:
What do you want your fabric to feel like?
(It’s *so* hard to communicate what I’m trying to say with only words and photos. I wish I could hand you the pile of swatches & projects so you could feel the difference. I hope this all makes some sort of sense, and if nothing else, inspires you to go pick up two pieces of fabric and feel the different qualities they exude.)
a week of shawls and swatches
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on.
Not much making this week. Lots of pattern writing & finalizing though.
Ordo, the shawl on top is coming out soon-soon.
The pattern for Noella (the red shawl), is now up on Ravelry – if you’ve been around awhile you might recognize it from a couple years ago, if you don’t recognize it hop on over and check it out.
And because I’m not sure I could ever go a week without knitting, I bound off the secret knitting I’ve been working on, and did some swatching. (because swatching is awesome.)
two sleeves, some yarn, new jewelry, and a shawl
Each Wednesday, I post little snippets about the projects I’m working on.
I spent most of the weekend working on projects that were very much not my secret project – yay! – and that ended up being quite productive.
Sleeves!!! My purple sweater has two of them. Now I just need to figure out the neckline situation, and I’ll have another sweater.
I finished a spinning & plying a skein of handspun yarn that has been sitting on my desk for months now – so finishing this feels amazing.
Back at VK Live in January, I learned how to bead crochet bracelets, but hadn’t learn how to close them. This weekend I learned, and how I have a pile of new jewelry! What’s not to love about that?
And finally, I took photos for a new shawl pattern. (Was the last shawl I finished, really Rosmerta?)
The design is a circular shawl, with a pretty complex, geometric, lace pattern – though I think my favorite part is probably the sun at the center.
I’m at the final stages of pattern editing, I think it came out beautifully, and I couldn’t wait to share some of the photos – so these are some of the outtakes that probably won’t find their way into the final pattern.
The yarn is Toil & Trouble’s merino/silk lace weight, two strands of yarn held together throughout the shawl, and knit on US #5 (3.75mm) needles. The colors are “Smoke Signals” (the light grey) and “Apollo” (the beautiful yellow/orange.)
PS! if you’re in the Boston area, Ana (the proprietress of Toil & Trouble yarns) just opened a new yarn shop in Salem – called Circle of Stitches. The grand opening is this weekend – March 7th, so stop by, say “hi,” and squish some yarn. Here’s the link to their website with the shop hours & address.
