Gauge Swatches and Secret Christmas Knitting

I wanted to do something a little bit different this year for Christmas, and with how happy my husband was with his hand knit hat, I figured I'd knit him a whole sweater. Thankfully I decided this in September, and would have tons of time to complete it, even though I can only knit it when he is not home.

I remembered that there was a pattern that he mentioned liking when I was scrolling through Ravelry one day so I figured that would be a good one to make, cause I already knew that he would like it! I ordered the yarn straight away and was so excited to get my gauge swatch finished up so I could start the sweater. Problem was, after I blocked the gauge swatch it had WAY too many stitches per inch. Like, it was shockingly far off. I'd never had that happen before. I tried making a second swatch with bigger needles and it was still way too far off to make the sweater. It seemed like by the time I got the gauge swatch right I'd be knitting with huge needles, and this would be a see through sweater. 

I decided to abandon the sweater, which was a really tough call because I was really excited to make him the one he wanted as a surprise. I searched Ravelry and found another sweater pattern that I think looks really nice, and seems like it's sort of his style.

The swatches for this one worked out much better. I still had to make a second swatch because the first one was a tiny bit off, but I'm completely certain that when the second swatch is done blocking it will be spot on, and I'll finally get to cast on. (A month later!!) 

I guess the moral of this story is to always knit your gauge swatches, because if I hadn't, I'd be half way to making a sweater that would have been even too small for me and wouldn't have made for a very Merry Christmas. 

I've also decided to finally take my family members' advice and start saving my swatches to eventually be used in a blanket! I thought it would take basically my lifetime to save up that many, but I already have a nice little pile going. I'm excited to see how the blanket will eventually look and I like that each swatch is a little piece of a larger project that I made or - in the case of the tree motif up top - didn't make. I think it would be cool to have a big blanket with a little piece of all of those projects in it. 

I ended up making a pile for worsted weight or heavier type yarns, and a little pile for fingering weight swatches. I'll probably make two blankets eventually so they will be somewhat consistent throughout, even if just in yarn thickness. 

What do you do with your gauge swatches? Keep them forever for reference? Rip them out and reclaim the yarn?

A Day at a Corn Maze

On the weekend I spent the day with my sister at a corn maze to take engagement photos for her with all the pretty fall colours. It was a super chilly day, but it was so worth it to get the photos, and to get to play around in the corn maze.

The view standing on tower at the start of the maze to help you get your bearings.

The corn maze was actually a lot of fun and it was just challenging enough to keep us guessing. It was fun to take turns guessing which path to take and to joke with other people in the maze that, going through beaten down paths in the corn was in fact "utilizing a resource", and certainly not "cheating". 

I was also way too excited for the petting zoo. I really do think in another life I must have had a whole farm or something cause I absolutely love to go and visit farm animals any chance I get. I'm actually not even totally certain I won't have farm animals in this life time.

Firstly we got to visit a pure white Llama who was quite a joker and would turn and face his butt to anyone who was standing by his pen for long enough in his opinion.

Next we saw some adorable and very friendly baby goats who let us pet them and hang out with them for a while. They were amazingly soft and this one had the most incredible bright blue eyes!

Next we finally got to visit with the sheep! Which are probably my favourite animal in the entire world, and not just because they keep me warm with soft fuzzy wools. They had about five baby sheep in the pen and they were all really friendly and sweet. It was nice to get to sit with them and pet them. It was surprisingly difficult to leave the little sheep and I only half jokingly told my sister we were going to have to pull around the car 'cause I was taking one home.

Lastly we went through their massive steel building that was entirely filled with pumpkins on bails of hay and lit with all kinds of pretty white lights. We managed to leave with only a few pumpkins each which I think was an exercise in restraint for us as they had so many different ones! It was nice to pick out pumpkins that were grown and picked right there as well. It was also really nice to get to pick something out and take it home, even if it couldn't have been a sheep.

Different ways to De-Pill a Sweater

Now that it's Fall I've started making soups, and lighting candles, and pulling out my sweaters. I basically lived in one cardigan that I made last year and I didn't realize how rough it looked when I put it away. I used a yarn that was a little bit delicate so it pills fairly easily and I guess I must have got used to it or something cause I really didn't realize that it was totally covered in little fuzz balls when I put it away.

Now that I'm actually seeing how bad it really is I wanted to de-pill the sweater before I started wearing it. I brought out a little machine that says "Dritz" on it that my Mom gave me and, even though I only used it once last year, it was totally dead when I tried to turn it on. I was a little hesitant to shell out and buy two new C batteries to bring it back to life and ended up finding a little pumice stone that was advertised to remove pills from sweaters which I thought would be nice because then it wouldn't take batteries and it couldn't die at inopportune times.

I must say I was a little disappointed because the pumice stone really grabbed and pulled the whole sweater, not just the little pills. I ended up holding the sweater with one hand while gently swiping the stone just above the sweater to catch the pills, which seemed to work okay, but I wasn't as impressed as I guess I was hoping to be.

I gave in and paid the $5 for the batteries (not as bad as I thought it would be) and tried using the little de-fuzzing machine. Just wow, I think when my Mom gave me the little machine it must have had mostly dead batteries because it was for sure working better than it did before. I was just gliding it over the sweater, kind of like a tiny iron, and it would quickly whisk away the little fuzz balls collecting them in a tiny lint trap like a dryer (which the pumice stone also had no way of doing). So, while I wanted to like the natural one-time-expense option, I guess I'm going to be using the little "Dritz" machine from now on, and I'll pretty happily buy batteries for it.

Anyway, that was just my experience with a couple different ways to de-pill sweaters that I just wanted to share. Hopefully it was somewhat interesting or a tiny bit helpful for someone who might be considering picking up something to de-fuzz their own sweaters for Fall.