Dorret Conway

Preparation and Practice Makes Perfect – the 3 P’s of Knitting

My fellow stitch n bitch buddies sheepishly admit that they never make a practice swatch. Swatches are not just good for testing tension but they are great for building confidence, growing your repertoire of techniques and a useful way to “doodle” between projects or when you have limited time to enjoy knitting.

But making a swatch before a project can make the difference between hours of uninterrupted knitting pleasure and the frustration of trying to sort out a problem in the middle of your project. And usually it will turn out to be something really simple that you can’t see through the fog of your increasing frustration and decreasing confidence.

Here are my handy tips:

• Always read through the whole pattern before you start
• Note any new abbreviations and look them up
• Make a swatch on about 30 sts/30 rows to practise a few repetitions of the stitch pattern any techniques and any new abbreviations note; you will need to vary the number of stitches to fit the pattern repeats

You will find that over time you will build a real understanding of knitting and rather than a stash of unfinished projects!

Next month I will be sharing my tips on how to knit socks and my free online video tutorial.

Dx