Knitting with the Special Yarn

Four gradient, handspun (by me) cakes have been sitting in my stash for about a year just waiting to become a sweater and I'm finally making time to cast on this special, Polwarth wool and silk yarn.
Last summer, as I was spinning, I knew the yarn would become a seamless, top-down, vanilla sweater. Let the yarn do it's work. Long, slow color changes shouldn't be broken up into pieces or cluttered with overly-complicated stitch work.
And now my confession!
When I looked at the cakes on my project table, even though it's my job know better, I seriously considered just grabbing what I thought would be appropriately sized needles and casting on. I didn't want to waste a single inch of these special cakes. Why not just try on as I go?
Fortunately, my rational brain took over.

When I knit my swatch I was concerned the fabric was a little too open and airy. (I wish I had taken a before picture to show you what I mean). Instead of ripping it out I trusted the process. Knit. Soak. Lay flat to dry.
Even before measuring gauge, my swatch gave me two critical pieces of information that saved me both time and yarn. Swatching is never a waste! First, the yarn bloomed when it hit the water. What I thought was an overly-airy fabric had a much nicer stitch density and hand. Second, although alternating the yarns helped me make reasonable gauge measurements, I did not like the look of the 2-row stripes.
Here's what would have happened if I hadn't swatched.
- As I started knitting, I would have knit a few rows, tried on the yoke and decided the fabric was too open. Then I would have ripped everything out and started over with smaller needles so the fabric was more dense. Even if my sweater fit-as-I-knit (which would have likely taken a few attempts since I didn't have any idea about gauge) as soon as it was washed the first time it would have been too stiff to wear because of the way the yarn bloomed. That would have been a waste of 2000+ yards of handspun yarn. What a sad waste of time and yarn!
- I also would have likely started my sweater with alternating stripes to minimize the natural inconsistencies of my handspun yarn. If I didn't like it in a swatch, I certainly wouldn't have liked the look in a sweater which would lead to more ripping out and re-knitting. More wasted time.
So after swatching, learning, measuring and making some basic shaping calculations I'm a little over halfway done with the body of my sweater. Even at this early stage, I know I'm going to be completely happy with the fabric and fit when I wear it for the first time.

Needles: skacel by addi Click Bamboo interchangeable needles, cords and heart cord stoppers

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