And This Is Why You Swatch

Update on Person Cozy: it'll be a while.

I didn't swatch. Rather, I used my hot water bottle cozy as a swatch to figure out gauge and how the yarn would behave after blocking. I figured this was perfectly reasonable - I was using the same yarn, same size needles, same stitch pattern - the only difference was the colorway. And oh, what a difference it made!

Berroco Peruvia in "sea turtle" is soft, squishy, warm, luscious with just enough of a halo to make it cozy. In black, however, it is scratchy, straw-like, less elastic, itchy and hairy. "Halo" is not the word - it's hairy. I noticed the difference early on while knitting - the yarn wasn't as soft, it was hairier, it was splittier than when I'd knit it in "sea turtle." I figured it would all even out after blocking. I was a fool.

The lesson I have learned, and I hope you'll all learn from my mistake, is to SWATCH!!! Swatch even when you don't think you need to. Switching to a new yarn of the same weight? SWATCH!!! Switching to a new colorway that feels slightly different? You're not crazy - SWATCH!!! I feel like I've flushed an itchy, hairy sweater's worth of yarn down the toilet. Ugh.

But in reality, I haven't. I have a prototype, I tried it on. I now know that the basic design works the way I wanted it to. I now know that if I raise the neckline and shorten the shoulder straps, it will look perfect. I now know exactly how much negative ease I want (it fits great width-wise, but the black yarn had less vertical stretch than the green yarn). I will find suitable yarn, I will swatch, I will knit a perfect and glorious Person Cozy, and it will be good. Someday. When I can afford the yarn. Like the phoenix, Person Cozy will rise again!

What's Next

After posting my very first pattern, Hot Water Bottle Cozy, a friend of mine commented that it looked on first glance like a sleeveless turtleneck. I agreed, and thought furthermore that it would be pretty freakin' awesome if said sleeveless turtleneck existed.

And thus, "Person Cozy" was born. :-) Person Cozy will have the same basic construction as the bottle cozy - buttoned shoulder flaps instead of seams, an optional ribbed turtleneck that'll basically be a matching, tight-fitting cowl, and also matching removable sleeves. It's very modular, this piece. And, because of the shoulder flaps instead of seams and the torso being knit in the round, it has the added bonus of being completely seamless.

I have the last shoulder flap and the turtleneck to go. I'm so close to being done with the knitting, and yet I'm so far from having this thing ready to publish. I've got to block it (it looks like an ill-fitting piece of ass right now, but I think it'll block to perfection), finish it, and last but by no means least, have it tested in various sizes. I'm writing it in sizes x-small through 3x-large, and I'm just hoping and praying that the size standards I have for the larger sizes actually work the way they're supposed to on a woman's body! It's a rather fitted piece, you see.