Knitting and Math

I recently ordered a sweater kit from Craftsy, I have in the past, purchased several classes and was curious about the physical products they offer. There was a promotion that gave 50% off some of the kits so it was an excellent time to give it a try.

Part of that promotion provided a 1 month free trial of Bluprint..... now I must admit that having the month long access to all classes with Bluprint I am taking advantage by checking out classes I may have not done otherwise.

In one of the classes, Wear What You Knit, Perfect Sweater Fit & Style with instructor Sally Melville, I learned a nifty trick for re-gauging a knitting pattern. If you are like me, you often see a sweater pattern that you would like to knit but either don't have ( or don't like) the size of yarn called for. A simple math formula can be used to "regauge" the pattern so that you can knit it using the yarn you want..... how excellent is that?!!....I mean....Whoa! you can do this? I could not wait to test this out, I needed  to see if the math would actually work for me.

I chose to use the math from the Sally Melville class to try knitting a sweater from the class Choose Your Own Sweater Adventure with Eunny Jang. The sweaters in this class called for a chunky yarn with a gauge of 12 stitches over 4". Personally, I do not like to wear or work with heavier yarns, I much prefer to knit with finer yarns.  The yarn I wanted to use is giving me 22 stitches over 4" and even with a lace pattern the math is working and the sweater is coming along great. I love that in this class you can knit so many variations of the pattern(s) provided

trouble is I now have 2 sweaters on the go  :-)

in addition to those classes I have also taken a number of classes about spinning and dyeing yarn and while I do not have a wheel, I find that I am able to apply much of what I am learning to the spinning I am doing on my drop spindles....as for the dyeing, well I am wanting to venture into dyeing my own fibre so you will likely see future posts on those experiments.

Here is a look at the fibre I have been spinning, the spindle on the left holds my spun singles, the spindle on the right contains the yarn as it has been chained plied (also referred to as Navajo plying)

and finally the finished yarn

here is a quick clip of me using my drop spindle

I have a few other things on the go as well so I hope to be back before too, too, long with another post