Swatched!

Look what I made! An actual washed and blocked swatch for the Ivy League Vest! I'm not usually so much for the whole "treating the swatch as you will the finished piece" thing. I do generally swatch, sometimes many times, but I never wash and pin. But, for a fitted fair-isle garment I thought I should suck it up and do it right. Here's my swatch: The colors in the second photo are more accurate - sorry the photos aren't very good but the lighting was bad and this is going to be tough to photograph because it has both light (too bright with the flash) and dark (need the flash) colors.

I swatched with size 3 needles for some reason that absolutely escapes me. The pattern calls for size 4, and I'm a tight knitter, so why I thought I would need to use smaller needles to get gauge completely baffles me. I'm getting about 7.5 stitches/inch instead of 7, so I think I'm going to just go for it with the size 4s. Live on the edge I say. My row gauge is miraculously close to being correct, and will probably be spot-on (famous last words) with the larger needles. I also suspect that when I go up to a 24" circular my knitting will be slightly looser because I won't be dealing with floats across the DPN junctions like I was in my swatch. So, the swatching is finished and I'll be casting on soon, although I decided I must finish my grandmother's Anastasia Socks first. It would be a shame to have had so much of the Christmas knitting done well in advance and then to fall behind on the very last thing when I had so much time to spare. Shame on me...

Oh, David loved his hat, and was wearing it in lab today! Great success - I love when recipients visibly appreciate the knitting!!!