Are you a knitting rule follower? Do you use the suggested yarn? Do you always do a gauge swatch? Do you follow a pattern to the letter? If so, I applaud you! These things I find so very difficult to do.
Along those lines, I am starting an experiment. I have been knitting socks recently and think I finally have my recipe down! You can read all about my new found love of the Shadow Wrap heel in this blog post. But I have been itching to get back to my all time favorite knitting project, Colorwork Sweaters! They are so fun and extremely satisfying!
When I get the urge to start a project, I want to cast on NOW! So off I go to find a pattern then to my stash to see what I have.
I found this great looking pattern called Elevate by Kate Salomon. It is written for fingering weight yarn.
In my stash I had a sweater's quantity of Rowan Denin Revive a skein of SpinCycle Dyed in the Wool that would look great with it. The only issue is that the Rowan yarn was DK weight and the Spincycle was Sport weight and the pattern was Fingering weight. Not to be detered, I am moving forward!
In the past I just go up or down two sizes if I am using different yarn weight than the pattern but this time I decided I would try to see if the math worked out (not my strong point).
So here is how my mind works:
Pattern Gauge = 24 stitches. Swatch gauge = 20 stitches. Finished measurement 40 in for the size I would normally make for the ease I wanted in a sweater. Now comes some divisiion 40/24 = 1.6. The smaller two sizes are 36 and 32. Following my idea, 36/20 = 1.8 and 32/20 = 1.6 so going down two sizes to 32 inch should fit perfectly.
Now as far as the differences in fiber weight of the two yarns, the strands are very similar in size. We will see how cotton and wool play together but I am pretty confident they will be friends.
I will post progress pictures as my Sweater experiment proceeds here and on IG and FB. Stay tuned!