Monthly Archives: July 2013

Jessica is the third of our 3 wonderful women who are currently writing about their projects using JMF yarn. She just returned from maternity leave this week, so I’m super impressed that she’s carving out a little time to share her project with us. She’s using her JMF Share yarn in Ojai. Well, when she can wrestle it out of her sweet daughter’s hands! – Lauria

I have been searching for the perfect project for my 2012 share yarn.  You must understand I could not use this yarn for an ordinary sweater.  It had to be the perfect one.  My yarn is the fabulous Ojai you saw featured in Sarah’s Hooray! Cardigan.

As you can see Superbaby loves Ojai.

When Lucania  by Teresa Gregorio showed up in my Facebook feed, I knew it was the right one. I love the bobbles and cable pattern, the multiple types of ribbing and the 1 by 1 rib hits at my narrowest point which will make this sweater flattering on me.  I tend to get hot easily (which is part of why I live in the mountains) so the short cap sleeve is another feature I was looking for in a sweater.  Ojai Lucania was born!

After reading the pattern through thoroughly, I noticed that there were three different gauges in this sweater.  Yes, I just said THREE different gauges.  I also know from previous experience that I often need to adjust sweater patterns due to my shape (long torso, medium shoulders and XL bust).  I know you might be cringing at the thought of knitting three gauge swatches, but it will be essential to my ability to knit a sweater that fits.

The first gauge is listed as stockinette in the round.  After reading through the pattern I realized it is in reverse stockinette.  This is a BIG difference for anyone who purls looser or tighter than they knit.  If you were to knit every row of the swatch and base your needle decision on that and then purl every row on the sweater, you could end up with a sweater that is way too big or small.

So I need to purl every row on a swatch and to get reverse stockinette. The common way to do this is to make a sleeve, but I don’t want to because this sweater has cap sleeves and I don’t want to waste my precious Ojai!  I need to make a flat swatch of reverse stockinette by purling every row.  Yes it is possible.

The method is one I learned from Tech Knitter when I was test knitting the fabulous Egbertine Cowl.

For my first Lucania swatch, I purled one row, placed a pin in the end, unraveled it, and measured the length of the unraveled row.  You can feel free to use your arm or sofa cushion or whatever is close by; there is no need to pull out a measuring tape.  Then I re-purled the first row (Hint: the pin SHOULD be at the end again or you have other gauge issues you need to work out).

For the next row (row 2) I pulled a length of yarn the length I measured (see why the sofa cushion is better than a measuring tape?) and started working at the beginning of my swatch again as if I were leaving the loose yarn across the back. However, the loose “loop” is the part of the yarn I purled, which placed the working yarn at the beginning of the swatch for my next row. Row 3 is purled like normal, then you repeat the process again.  It is hard to see with one color of yarn, so I will leave the demonstration to Techknitter who has some helpful illustrations.  It is awkward at first to knit that “loop” row since you cannot use your fingers to tension as normal, but it is a skill worth learning.

You can see that the end of my swatch is a bit messy.  This is due to the imperfect measurement, but the edge stitches are always a bit off gauge and should not be measured anyway. I repeat this swatching process for the garter rib stitch and will do my 1 by 1 rib swatch before I decide which size I will knit.

Jessica lives in the cesspool of sin (aka: Asheville, NC) with her husband and Superbaby.  She enjoys knitting, spinning, hiking and has recently become obsessed with Downton Abby and True Blood.  She continues her search for a way to keep work from cutting into her crafting time.