happiness is....

- the sun warming up the garage door enough for it to defrost and unstick
- ruby red grapefruits
- my friend Katie saying "I'm not sure if the pattern is called 'My First Cabled Sweater' because it's for a 6 month old or because it's in a beginners knitting book."
- thinking I've finally gotten the right swatch for Rogue


The swatches and their respective yarns. (colors are a bit off because I'm relying on artificial light)
The sweater (folded in a tealy-green color) is one of my store-bought favorites and the Bartlett yarns (in a teal/blue color and a blue/purple color) are sitting on top. (I thought the color looked familiar...) I think I got the right gauge in this yarn, but I need to wait and see what it looks like when they're really dry. In the middle is an olive greenish cascade 220 and it was the most difficult to get the right stitch count. On the far left (sitting next to my new favorite face cloth from Theresa) is the icey purple Jo Sharp yarn. Getting gauge with this was a big stretch but I thought I'd try.

All in all, I can get 5 stitches to an inch with multiple needle sizes and multiple yarns - getting 4.5 was nearly impossible.

I know that swatches can lie and hemming and hawing about half a stitch per inch might not be a good use of time, but I really want to get this right. Tomorrow they will all be dry and I can measure them without bias (just picture me trying to force them into the sizes I want and then trying to feel the resulting fabric to see if it's sweater-able). I know blocking can help and that might ultimately be what I need to rely on. The bartlett is a thicker yarn and I thought it'd be easier to get the right gauge but even that swatch feels a little bit thin to me. The cascade is thinner but sleeker and softer, and though the "right" swatch feels thin to me, it might feel different when it's dry.

With any luck I'll have two sleeves on the needles tomorrow...