FO Friday: Finished Sample Knitting!

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For this FO Friday, I've got a finished sample knit!  The sample knit I've been working on for PURL Magazine is done and, at the time of this posting, should have made its way through the post to where it needs to be! 

Since this is going to be published by the wonderful folks at PURL, (look for it Spring 2027!) I can't show you all the details yet, but I'm pretty happy with how the buttons and button band turned out! 

The gradient is thanks to the gorgeous dyeing of Freia Fine Yarns - one strand of her gradient yarns and one strand of her solid yarns held together produced an amazingly squishy sweater, while the buttons are from Good Grief Yarn Shop (shoutout for being able to buy exactly as many buttons as I need, no more, no less!) 

Since this was two worsted yarns held together, it needed a big needle - I worked it on a set of *6 mm circulars, and was sure to grab a very long circular, since, not to give away too much of how it works, but this sweater pattern does have a lot of stitches at a few points! (Please, don't panic, I promise it's not hard!) 

 One note about the yarn, though?  It grows when you wash it.  A lot.   

Now, this is normal for superwash yarn, but, I didn't expect this sweater to grow quite as much as I did when I washed it!  I admit, I may have panicked, considering it was supposed to be a magazine sample and turned absurdly oversized when wet!  But, like most superwash yarns, a quick trip through the dryer with some heat brought it back to exactly the same tension I'd started with, so, that was one crisis averted!  So, if you wash something in this yarn and then panic because it's too big,  try running your Finished Object through the dryer, it will likely rescue it it with ease. 

And, for those asking if I wash and block my swatch?  No, I didn't -- I usually don't, since I know that superwash wool tends to grow and a jaunt in the dryer will bring it back.  I find that most swatches tend to lie, even with washing and blocking, and, 99% of the time, I can take a good enough guess from my unblocked swatches to get a pretty good idea of how things will behave - lace in lace-weight yarn being the one exception, since it usually needs to be blocked out to get a good idea of how it will look. 

Swatches are a useful tool to get in the ballpark of how a yarn will act, and to find out if you like a specific colour/fibre choice/needle size, but they cannot mimic how the yarn will behave in a blanket or sweater, especially after its used a few times.  (Also, my ADHD brain rarely has the patience for the whole process of washing, blocking, and sometimes weighting my swatches, so yes, I do live dangerously, occasionally!)

But yeah, even though I can't show full pictures yet, I do, in fact, have another project off the needles, and it's a very exciting thing!  Now, back to the Birthday Socks - lets see if I can keep the momentum going and finish those, too!