Work Your Swatch Like a Sock, but with a Steek

With double-pointed needles, a long circular needle for magic loop, or two circular needles, cast on about 6" (15 cm) worth of stitches, then add 3–5 extra (steek) stitches at the end of your round. Place a marker and join for working in the round. Work a few rounds of single-color stockinette or garter, then work Round 1 of your color pattern, ending the round with your steek stitches—knit them by alternating colors every stitch. Then continue in this manner until you’ve worked about 6" (15 cm). Work a few more rounds of single-color stockinette or garter and bind off. You may wish to change the position of the needles every few rounds to avoid laddering at the separation points. After binding off, cut through the center of your center steek stitch, then block. If you want some practice reinforcing the steek, this is a great place to do it (see the next section for more info on steeks.) If you’ve got that down, though, there’s really no need to reinforce, since it’s just a swatch and won’t be worn. I don’t actually bother with steek stitches any more, and always just cut my swatches! I prefer swatching this way because I find it more natural and less cumbersome than leaving long strands along the back. However, some knitters actually work more tightly on small circumferences than on large ones because you have to fuss with multiple needles, and that finickiness can cause gauge to tighten up. You’ll have to experiment to find out your own knitting style and whether this method is reliable for you.

Whichever method you choose, be sure to wet-block your swatch before evaluating it. (I cut before blocking, but if your yarn is slippery, like cotton or silk, you may want to give yourself some extra edge stitches since you may get more unraveling than you would with a sticky wool. You can also just avoid cutting altogether by measuring your swatch as a tube or with the long strands along the back un-cut.) Pinning your swatch about every half inch will help it to dry flat without scalloping edges. (If your edges aren’t straight, use more pins!) I also recommend measuring at several different spots on your swatch to get an accurate measurement.

And finally, my top swatching tip is: Record your needle size right away - maybe this is in a notebook or on the yarn label, or maybe mark the swatch itself by creating yo/k2tog's to indicate the size or tying knots in the tail. Just don't leave this step out and assume you'll remember. You will not remember.

There’s lots more info like this in AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary [https://www. andrearangel. com/books/] to help you make use of the 200 new colorwork motifs and five new projects. I hope you all take up the challenge and make the motifs and projects your own! If you’re posting on social media about your projects, use #alterknitstitchdictionary so we can all follow along, and if you’ve reviewed the book, let me know so I can add it to the list on my website. Curious what people have said about the book so far? Here’s a link to that list [https://www. andrearangel. com/alterknit-reviews].

Happy knitting!

P. S. If you want to learn more about colorwork, I’ll be teaching a workshops on the topic this fall! Join me at Knit City in Vancouver on Friday, September 29, 2017, and at Vogue Knitting Live, in Bellevue, WA on Sunday, November 5, 2017. I’ll also be offering a class on Knitting with Charts at Knit Fit in downtown Seattle on Saturday, November 11, 2017. Here’s a link to info about all my upcoming workshops - https://www. andrearangel. com/events/.