In May 2019 I was thumbing through Barbara Walker’s A Treasure of Knitting Patterns (Book 1) and wondered if it would be fun to swatch all the stitch patterns in the book. So I decided to give it a try. Spoiler alert – for a process knitter like me, who just loves to knit and doesn’t feel the need to make a project – it is the best knitting “project” ever!

I knit through the first few chapters for much of the year, knitting at least three or four swatches a day. For some reason – which I no longer remember – I stopped swatching sometime in November. Over the next two years I occasionally picked up needles and yarn to work on a hat or a pair of fingerless gloves. But I stopped knitting the swatches.

At the beginning of this year, I wanted to stream art or fiber arts on Twitch. If you’re not familiar with Twitch, it is a live streaming platform owned by Amazon. Originally launched for gamers to live-stream as they play video games while fans watch and chat, it has grown over the years to also include segments of artists, makers, and musicians. Seemed like the perfect place to connect with other knitters and crafters – and it is! I typically live-stream for two hours on Mondays and Tuesdays at 9am EST.

As I’m slowly figuring out the platform, I’ve started saving the streams (they otherwise disappear after two weeks) and grouping them based on chapters from the book. At some point I hope to get pieces of the streams uploaded to YouTube as well. But for now, you can watch past streams on Eyelet Knitting and Lace Knitting on Twitch. I believe you can watch them without having to create an account – although creating an account is free.

I’ve been knitting for decades, and there is always something to learn. And I’ve learned a lot as I’ve swatched my way through the chapters. I love dissecting each stitch pattern into its various components to get a real understanding of how knit and purls work together to create a pattern. Often a stitch pattern seems intimidating – and then you realize that all the wrong side rows are purled; or the sequence of stitches on a row is the same on another row, just shifted. That’s the information that I like to suss out and share with my viewers/students.

I recently created a Skillshare class on knitting cables without using a cable needle. [If you’re not on Skillshare, the link will give you a free one-month trial* with access to thousands of classes, including mine.] The two stitches I teach in the class are easy and elegant, resulting in a scarf as a class project. I’m already working on the next Skillshare class (you can be amongst the first to know when it’s released if you sign up for my newsletters.)

My journey of swatching is still in the early stages. Even though I am more than half-way through the book – it is the first of four books. I have many, many hours of knitting ahead! And I’m really looking forward to learning and discovering – and sharing those insights with you.

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