Suzannah picked out the Wonderful wool by Steadfast Fibers for her picture day 2008 sweater. Label suggests 4 sts per inch. I swatched on a 4.5 mm and got 3.75 sts per inch. Then I swatched on a 3.75 mm and got 4.5 stitches per inch.
Why did I jump from 4.5mm needles to 3.75mm needles and skip the size 4.00mm needles? Becuase the swatch on the 4.5mm needles biassed like crazy. It leaned like all the stitches were italicized. I read in Clara Parkes' wonderful book The KNitters Guide to Yarn a suggestion to knit single ply yarns at a tighter gauge to try to conteract the bias. That is why I skipped the size 4.00mm needles.
However, even at the tighter gauge once the swatch was washed a blocked it had a definite bias. Not as bad as the looser swatch, but there is definitely some leaning going on. Darn it!
What do I do now. Suzannah has said she doesn't want any lumpie bumpies on her sweater. Yet she has choosen this single ply that will bias in stockinette. Do I substitute another yarn or do I add some purl and knit patterns, or do I just knit a sweater that leans?
If you notice in the middle of the swatch above I slipped in some seed stitch. First to test Suzannah to see if she likes the seed stitch and to test myself to see how long I could stand knitting seed stitch. I detest seed stitch. Even though seed stitch cancelled the bias, I can't bring myself to designing an entire sweater out of seed stitch.
Gotta sleep on it.
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