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#swatching

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I am knitting Earthly in Patons Linen (cotton, linen, viscose) and it’s my first time working with linen.
I was told, and everything I’m reading, and watching on YouTube emphasizes the importance of blocking my linen swatches. I hand washed in warm water with agitation, and am tumble drying now. After it’s dry, I’ll machine wash and dry the swatches like my son will when he’s living with the finished sweater. The swatches have become very soft, have grown a bit in length, but so far the width seems stable. Will see how second blocking goes. It’s going to be a very nice sweater if I can get the sizing right. Using the EZ PZ Gauge Ruler to measure, and the stitches were better defined after the first blocking.
Planning to make an XL (size 46” chest) depending on what happens with the swatches, since according to Google, yarn can be machine washed and tumbled dry, it may shrink up to 10%, (which would make the XL a 43.2” fit) BUT I had a bamboo ribbon yarn top shrink to child size in my washer (still sad about that, the pre wash size was perfect!) so I’m gun shy. RIP Coachella tank in Tahki Yarns Bali ribbon. I’d use that yarn again, but definitely wet block, and handwash (it got accidentally thrown into the washing machine)

ravelry.com/patterns/library/e

jimmybeanswool.com/products/cr

ravelry.com/patterns/library/c

Ink swatching: KWZ all that glitters - Stardust Blue

They claim they've got a formula that keeps glitter in suspension longer and given that the jar looks like swamp water after I've shaken it there's definitely something going on! It definitely needed less re-shaking than my inkvent inks did.

It's a pretty blue-black colour. The shimmer is more like that in a metallic gel pen than in most of my other shimmer inks. Performed great in my dip pen but I'll need to get it in a regular one and into rotation to see how well it works for normal use.

Continuing my swatching distractathon this week, then!

I normally don't take quite as much care over swatching but it's nice to take things seriously for a change, especially since I'll be committing to a whole long lacy cardigan on 2.5mm needles 😬

Plus I get to see how the 50% wool in that top swatch feels after washing, to make sure I can actually wear it. Which is always useful to know before you start!

This #WIPWednesday I am mostly swatching in black. Which will be incredibly boring to knit but much more practical to wear than a lot of stuff I make!

Enjoyed seeing everyone's Clapotises, but there's something about the pattern that just doesn't do it for me.

Enter the unfortunately named Dummy Clap Shawl: ravelry.com/patterns/library/t

Do we reckon this still counts for #ClapotisFest? 👀

Gifted PR*

I had the pleasure of trying out these beautiful polishes by Victorian Varnish! Actinic Rays is a solar polish that starts off white and turns into a vibrant pink in the sun and Pride Pizzazz is a fun orange polish that fell in love with right away!

Victorian Varnish - Actinic Rays Victorian Varnish - Pride Pizzazz

I have done a lot of half-pan filling over the years and used so many different pens to mark them, and these Pilot Twin Markers are the BEST. They’re so nice. They have an alcohol and oil-based ink and they mark anything. They have two tips, and the smaller one is perfect for teeny writing like on these leetle pans. I buy mine at jetpens.com.

Talking with Mastodon friends about watercolors over the last few days has inspired me to finally make a template and start swatching in earnest - meaning, make a true reference for myself rather than doing it for curiosity and relaxation (great reasons! but I also need a better reference).

My two favorite colors I don’t hear people talk about much are Indanthrone Blue and Quinacrodone Coral. Both single pigments (Daniel Smith).

Cleaning up my desk today I found this great little travel palette from Art Toolkit that I got a year or so ago. I’d really like to start using this again, so I swatched it into my current journal. I had filled it with colors I couldn’t remember the names of and I didn’t feel like digging through three big ziploc bags of paint tubes so I just did my best to remember what they were.

Continued thread

This will be the last swatch in this project in my actual planned yarn. I made this a little bigger aiming for around 4 inches wide. Looks like I need another couple ends per inch.

Now I just need to figure out how I want to arrange my stripes and I can start the big warping.

Continued thread

Now there are more little swatches from random stash yarns confirming that 4 inch knitting gauge to an inch and a half is not really a hard and fast rule, but at least a reasonable starting place.

The new yarns here are the brown Berroco Remix the navy Berroco Vintage DK.

The blue and gold is some random linen weaving thread. It was useful in that it confirmed there is no way I want to work with thread that fine. Even though the resulting fabric feels really interesting.

Made some progress. Not too bad. I'm not certain I like enough to do a whole vest. And I'm not certain I have enough yarn either. Should have weighed my cakes before I started so that I could get a better estimate. Also need to look up which yarn is dominant again, because I suspect I'm doing it the wrong way. Still... it's just a tea cozy! This is how we learn.