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Your Swatch Wants to Chat With You So You Get the Perfect Project!

What is your swatch saying you?  I don’t know exactly what you need to hear (from your swatch), but this is what this one told me!  It is for my Sienna tee in Sea Lace from Hand Maiden.

Swatch Chat, Part One

  1. Swatches pre-blocking don’t look bad, and in fact often look so luscious that you might think you don’t need to block.
  2. Wet blocking is wonderful and lets me see what the final fabric will look like.  Steam blocking gives that nice smooth look I love.
  3. Wow is this different after blocking!  The tape measure shows that what originally measured 3.5″ in length has grown by 2″.  Plus, much more polished looking.
  4. Not shown, but in width, it has gotten slightly narrower in each stitch pattern due to lengthening.
Sienna (and Sagrada Familia) unblocked.
Blocked swatch has gotten flatter and longer, and all the stitches have tidied up. There are beads strewn, and anchored beads at the tip of each herringbone.
Wet blocked, steam blocked. Beads scattered on surface, plus a bead at the peak of each triangle.
Measurement taken of the 1x1 rib, which has grown 2" in length from the unblocked swatch. Both rib and seed look much tidier too!
Sienna rib and seed stitch. Measurement went from 3.5″ / 9 cm to 5.5″ / 14 cm in length. Width changed too.

Sienna is ready for the design table. I’ve got gauge measurements for each element and now I go to a spreadsheet. As a final note, there was a fair amount of dye discharge when soaking. The wash I use tends to grab out any remaining dye, so this is good. But when I wash the final project, that is good to consider.

I feel so smart after this chat with my swatch!

Swatch Chat, part 2

How much does my swatch weigh? What is the area of my swatch? Why do I want to know?

Once I have the weight (14g), and the area of the swatch I can estimate yardage for the project. I need to the take rough length (10.75″ / cm ) and width (10.5″ / cm) measurements to get the area. 112.875 inches square. If I put with the weight of the swatch, I can estimate the yardage I will need for the tee. There is yarn pulled across the back, so this will be a rough estimate. I am going to add a bit to the area to account for the shoulder which isn’t in my basic measurements, and to compensate for the pulled yarn. The shoulder measures 4.25″ / 10.8 cm x 2.75″ / 7 cm. I’m going to round up to 5″ / 12.7 cm. Total shoulder area 13.75″ / 88.9 cm square.

Total area in my swatch is 13.75\ + 112.875 = 126.625″ / 286.7 + 88.9 cm = 375.6 cm square

Weight of my swatch is 14g.

Total estimated area of Sienna in size 10 is 882″ inches” / 1039.5 cm square. How many grams of yarn will I need? 97.5g is the answer.

I will have to wait until I have more data to get closer than that, but I’m going to plan on using 100g. Thankfully, I have another skein,

a graphic of the formula used to determine area and weight of yarn used/needed.

P.S. Blogs on swatching below.

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