The Swatch that Stood up by Itself

...and Other Stories.

Tired of your handknit garments fitting well and being full of pesky drape? Fed up of your knitwear eliciting compliments from people every time you wear it? Does sporting the same hand-knit cardigan week in week out just because you love the way it hangs and the fact that you made it really get to you after a while? Well, ladies and gentlemen, try knitting with:

Frankenyarn! This is the yarn I spun in yesterday's post  knitted up into a swatch. Which, as you can see, has a life of its own. Knit with this and all your garments will be alive, I tell you, alive! This swatch walked off the needles and into the garden all by itself where I found it sobbing quietly and muttering 'I didn't ask you to create me'. Good lord, what have I done?

I know what the problem is. I plied it too tightly. A "beginner's mistake", apparently. Pah! Anyway, here's my attempt at plying more loosely, or Navajo plying.

I daren't even knit that up for fear of creating a sibling for the Living Swatch.

I cheered myself up with the prospect of knitting Ysolda's Gretel hat with this yarn, which looks even greener than bits of our garden (ha, not difficult):

Not shown in picture above: the bit where beautiful yarn gets covered in mud after dropping off the leaves. Yarn: Cascade 220 in shade 7814. Mud, model's own. Model: Montebretia at Percy Thrower models.

Seconds later, but without yarn, this fella visited:

Which more than makes up for the Frankenswatch, don't you think?