Charlie Brown swatch
So at Knitting Guild this past Tuesday night, it was announced that Stitch was closing their doors on April 15th. I had thought it was May 1st, so I had been procrastinating deciding whether to get that Dale Baby Ull I had been thinking of using for my dad’s Charlie Brown sweater. Then it was announced that everything was still 25% off – but they were closing Friday through Monday, and when they reopened on Tuesday, everything would be 50% off. Woot!
Emily and I stopped by the store yesterday to see what they had. A few weeks ago when we were there, they had 36 balls of Dale Baby Ull in golden. Yesterday, they had 36 balls of Dale Baby Ull in golden. Based on that, I decided it wasn’t a major risk to wait until Tuesday to pick it up. So come Tuesday morning at 10am, I’ll be at that door with a cattle prod to fend off the other bargain shoppers. And while I had steadfastly refused my father’s offer to buy the yarn for his own birthday sweater, he did give me some mad money a while back when I told him the yarn store was closing, so actually, he will be buying the yarn for his own birthday sweater. Heh. Thanks, Dad! I might pick up some Mission Falls 1824 wool while I’m at it. I’ve already got 10 balls of black from another 50% off sale in 2004 at Angel Hair Yarn in Nashville, I should probably get a few more and, you know, actually make a sweater or something from it. It’s black, how different can the dye lots be? (Yeah, famous last words.)
So, armed with the knowledge that I could get the perfect Charlie Brown color in mass quantities at half price, I decided I should go ahead and make a swatch and be sure it was the right weight and texture. Fortunately, I have several half-balls left over from various projects. I had originally gotten some to make not only Elizabeth, but also these knit flowers. I realized partway through the flowers that cotton worked better for the flowers, so I’ve still got a fair amount of the Dale Baby Ull. The flowers, by the way, were gifts for my daughter’s “special” teachers two years ago. I put pin backs on them and included a note that said, “thank you for helping my daughter bloom.” All together now: awwwwww.
So last night at our knitting meeting at Books-a-Million, I knitted a square with the yarn held doubled on #6 needles. I got 5 stitches per inch. The fabric looked pretty good. I had heard that this yarn was machine washable, so since I had to wash it anyway to see what it would do, I decided to put it through its paces.
This is the same swatch, machine washed in warm water and tumbled dry on low heat, both with a regular load of laundry. Not bad for 100% wool! It softened up some, but there’s not a lot of fuzzing and no pilling. You can see a small size difference, but not much of one. The unwashed gauge was 5 stitches per inch and the washed gauge was 5 1/4 stitches per inch. So I’ll just knit it with that finished measurement in mind so that it’ll shrink into the correct size after I wash it. Turtlegirl76 has suggested that I have Dad send it to me for washing, which seems like a sensible solution and will give us another excuse to visit. But if it gets tossed in with his regular laundry, it’s good to know it’ll turn out all right.
As you can see, the fabric is not too stiff, but not too thin either. This looks about right. I might even be able to go up a needle size, but this looks fine, so I don’t know that I should bother. This color, by the way, is lighter than the color I was looking at. My father does not need a giant Don Johnson Miami Vice 80’s canary-yellow sweater.
So! Half-priced 100% high quality wool which I don’t have to knit on tiny needles and which will stand up to machine washing. Not bad! Step two: do I go to Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, which I own but haven’t used yet, or choose a different pattern? Considering the big colorwork design around the body, do I knit this in the round or in pieces? I’m torn! I’d knit another sweater, both ways, just to see before I tackled his, but that’s a long time for him to wait and his birthday was in January so I’m getting a late start on this as it is. I’ll mull this over – and welcome input – and in the meantime he can make do with his tiny little model sweater.