Planning for the next knitting project; a sweater/jumper. I’ll be using the same yarn as for the fiery cardigan but in a different colour. I’m thinking of going up a step in needle size to get a slightly looser, thinner fabric – which means knitting a new gauge swatch. For the non-knitters, a gauge swatch is a small, square “trial” piece that you knit with the exact yarn and needles you plan to use for your real project, to figure out how many stitches you get per 10 cm.

For some reason I find these incredibly, unbelievably boring. I truly hate knitting gauge swatches. It makes no sense – if I was knitting a dishcloth of the same size, I doubt I’d had any negative feelings about it. It’s just knitting! Which I like! Perhaps it’s the inherent uselessness of them. You make one, do the measuring and counting, and then just… put it away to gather dust forever, or rip it up.

Still, starting knitting without swatching and then having to rip up the real thing after realizing it doesn’t fit – which would mean a lot more wasted work – would be even more annoying. So I grit my teeth and get it done.