A pair of superwash yarns gets put through their paces in this week-long project. This post covers what makes superwash yarn special and why swatching matters more than the ball band suggests. It also covers choosing colors with intention and picking up a few tricks for intarsia knitting along the way.
This child’s vest with a bit of argyle on it, is the ‘canvas’ for the remainder of the week. It’s called the Argyle Junior Vest.
About the yarn
Superwash treatments keep wool from shrinking and felting in the wash. This happens either through a light polymer coating or an acid bath that smooths the tiny barbs on each fiber. This process gives the yarn a bit less memory and a bit more drape than untreated wool. That suits loose, flowing garments particularly well. Two related weights work well together here: DK and worsted. Each comes in dozens of shades, ranging from warm rust and orange tones to cool blues and soft pastels.
Swatch before trusting the ball band
Ball bands list a recommended gauge, but that number is only ever a starting point. The DK weight yarn lists 20 stitches to 4″ [10cm] on a US 6 [4mm] needle. The worsted weight yarn lists 18 stitches to 4″ [10cm] on a US 7 [4.5mm] needle. Both numbers run a little looser than what many knitters would expect for those weight categories.
Swatching told a different story than the ball band did. The DK yarn actually knit up at 22 stitches to 4″ [10cm] on the recommended needle. It only loosened to 21 stitches on a needle one size larger. The worsted yarn measured 21 stitches to 4″ [10cm] on its recommended needle. It loosened to 19.5 stitches on a needle two sizes up. A firmer, tighter gauge won out in the end. A snug fabric holds up better against little fingernails and busy play.
A pair of superwash yarns gets put through their paces in this project. This post covers what makes superwash yarn special and why swatching matters more than the ball band suggests. It also covers choosing colors with intention and picking up a few tricks for intarsia knitting along the way.
These bright samples are for my Junior Argyle Vest. The pink one is made from Deluxe DK Superwash, and the orange one from Deluxe Worsted. The top section on these samples would be great for a colored shawl or slouchy hat, but not so much for a sweater or mittens.
A children’s pattern makes this kind of gauge experimenting more forgiving than it would be for an adult garment. A small stitch count difference can shift an adult sweater’s finished size by a couple of inches. Children’s patterns come in several sizes though, and kids are roughly half the circumference of an adult to begin with. Knitting slightly off gauge on a child’s project usually just means sizing up or down. At worst, it leaves a little extra room to grow.
A pair of superwash yarns gets put through their paces in this week-long project. This post covers what makes superwash yarn special and why swatching matters more than the ball band suggests. It also covers choosing colors with intention and picking up a few tricks for intarsia knitting along the way.
Choose colors with intention
A free vest pattern, sized from 6 months through 10 years, became the perfect test project for both yarns and a bit of color theory. Download the free pattern here. Warm colors like red, yellow, and orange sit opposite cool colors like blue, green, and purple on the color wheel. Each color also carries its own value, or brightness, once converted to grayscale. A soft pink actually reads lighter than a golden yellow. This is true even though yellow often feels like the brighter color at a glance. Higher-value colors make wonderful accents that pop against a design. Lower-value colors anchor and ground the whole piece instead. Playful color themes can completely transform how the same small pattern feels, from soft pastels to bold primary brights to holiday-inspired palettes.
I ‘girlied up’ the Argyle Junior Vest with this primary-based colorway. The primary colors (red, blue and yellow) have long been my favorite, and as is the case here, they creep into many of my projects. Note how I shook things up by changing the values, adding a deep navy blue for the diamonds to offset the higher-valued pink and yellow.
Knit tidy intarsia
A touch of colorwork on the vest opened the door to a few intarsia tips worth knowing. Small bobbins, or simple yarn butterflies, keep each color block tidy and untangled as the work progresses. For very small motifs, cutting a short length of yarn works just as well. This skips the bobbin altogether, as long as the length is estimated carefully. Carrying colors no more than a stitch or two behind the work keeps the tension even throughout. At every color change, cross the new color up and under the old one. Doing this the same way every time prevents unwanted holes from forming. A gentle tug on any loose stitches near a color change evens out the tension. This stops it from becoming a permanent flaw. Weaving in the tails afterward, following the path of same-colored stitches, keeps every end secure. It also stays invisible from the right side.
There, that’s better! I’ve wound the pink and navy yarns into butterflies, and sorted everything out. While this photo shows the wrong side of the work, I’m ready to start the next right-side row of the chart.