First You Make a Swatch...
Yeah, I'm still knitting.
Darilee and I are teaching a sweater design class at the moment--we have 4 fantastic students--and we both decided to work on sweaters with the class as well. Darilee, wise woman that she is, decided to work with Noro Silk Garden Chunky. She's already swatched and is about halfway up the back of her sweater. One week after the class started, I finally got a swatch together.
I've been eyeing this particular shade of Galway Highland Heathers (color 746) for a long time. It's a gorgeous deep heathered red; it has hints of charcoal and silver, and it just makes me happy to look at it. I bought a bag of it in December for this sweater and started to think about the sweater I would make.
And I thought, and I thought, and I thought.
I considered making something really casual--a simple garter or stockinette cardigan that I could wear with jeans, or a cozy pullover, or a hoodie. Those would have been wise choices; easy stitch patterning, fairly quick knitting, simple finishing.
But hey, why go easy when you can go hard, eh? I picked up my needles and started swatching. I picked a stitch pattern that would make the kind of fabric I wanted, and proceeded to increase my needle sizes until I was using US 11 needles to get that worsted to 5 st/inch. While I did that work, I worked out a few other things as well.
So I'm working toward a linen stitch jacket, with set-in sleeves, a round neck, a slight bit of waist shaping, i-cord edging (in charcoal or the same red--I haven't decided yet), and some unobtrusive, but effective, closure.
Amazing what making a swatch can inspire you to do.