Gauge Swatch for Elizabeth Zimmermann EPS Yoked Sweater

 It is no secret that I am trying to use up my yarn.  I still have so much of the Hilda Yates yarn (spun and dyed at Bartlettyarns Mill in Harmony, Maine) that I want to use up.  I decided to make a cardigan sweater for our daughter using up as much as I can.  Based on how little of the yarn actually went into making that Celtic Knot afghan, I believe I will not use that much up for this project.  Sad.  But only because I am promising myself not to acquire ANY MORE YARN until I have used this up.  And there are things I want to make...!

Anyway,  here is a picture of the gauge swatch I just finished for the EPS Yoked Sweater.  Don't be too excited about all the errors and flaws in it. Yes, I am aware of them though I do welcome anyone's input on how to make it better.  There are many things I learned while doing this.

1. Gauge is really important.

2. To get gauge you may need to change needle sizes.

3. You may need to use different size needles in your pattern, for example I found that to get my color work gauge to more closely match the non-color work gauge, I had to go up a couple needle sizes.

4. To have beautiful vibrant peeries you need HIGH contrast yarns, though beauty is in the eye of the beholder actually.

5.  When knitting button bands, it is important to pickup the needles you used for the plain knitting, not the color work knitting!  Those bands will be tighter and tidier.

When all is said and done, I am so happy to have knit this entire small sweater as the gauge swatch. I think it is kind of cute and I was able to "learn", or at least start to learn, how to do many things I had not done before or if I had done them, it was ages ago.

Some of those things are:

making a pocket
color work-I did knit a beautiful if I say so myself Fanoe sweater for a granddaughter when she was a very little girl but that was way different from these patterns
making hems instead of ribbings
weaving as I go which I learned from The Philopher's Wool wonderful people

Thinking back I have read and followed several books besides all the Elizabeth Zimmermann books which have helped me.  One of them was the Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee which was fabulous.  I knit her sample and learned a ton some of which came back to me on this project.  Another one that I totally loved was Sweater 101 by Cheryl Brunette. I am not advocating that you buy these books, but they gave me a ton of confidence.  Now to develop the skills!  Really develop them.

My view is that having made so many mistakes on the gauge swatch, I won't make at least the same errors in the real project!  Perhaps the sweater will work up well...