SWATCH IT!

You know you've been there. You're standing in your LYS fondling a skein of the latest must-have yarn, when the uncertainty strikes you. You think to yourself, "Sure, it's beautiful sitting here in the hank/ball/skein, but what will it look like knitted up?" Well, at last there's a source for you to see for yourself just what that yarn might look like in an actual garment, as well as hear my comments on what it's like to work with the yarn. Just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't always judge a sweater by its hank. Now I'll take the plunge for you, and boldly go where someone has undoubtedly gone before, but just hasn't posted about it.

If there's a particular yarn you'd like to see, leave me a comment or send me an e-mail, and I'll do my best to get it done for you.

For my first forray into the swatching world, I bring you:

African Bead Ball
Be Sweet Yarn Company
From their website, I quote: "Boucle baby mohair with African beads hand tied throughout. Spun with a thin metallic strand. 50g ball is 120 yards. 3 stitches / inch on US 11 needles. available in 17 colors."
Retail price: $33.60
My source: The Knit Stop, Indianapolis, IN

I won't always include company information, but I felt this yarn deserved it. Many of you may not have even heard of Be Sweet yet, and their mission is so lovely that I thought you might appreciate knowing. I quote from the yarn label:

"This yarn was hand spun and dyed by women in South Africa under a job creation program that has offered opportunity in an economically depressed rural region with a 75% unemployment rate and little opportunity aside from hard labor in pineapple fields...Enjoy this beautiful product knowing that you have brought hope into a South African community and that a portion of your purchase is helping support the local school."

They don't say this, of course, but knowing this might also make the pricepoint a little easier to take. After all, you're not just knitting yourself something beautiful, you're creating jobs and supporting a school! Now that's the kind of yarn justification I like!

This yarn begged to be something more than a swatch, and when I thought about it, I decided it would make a great looking necklace. So after searching for a pattern, I happened upon this one for the Knecklace on Knitty.com. With this yarn in the dark blue plum colorway, I only needed to cast on about 128 stitches. The Knecklace required only 20 grams of fiber, so you could make a matching bracelet if you wanted, as there would be plenty of yarn left.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my size 5 needles didn't get caught in the boucle loops nearly as much as they had with other boucles. It was great having the beads already strung on and ready to roll, though I must say, for this particular colorway, I would have preferred some more matching colored beads, rather than these crayola crayon colored ones. The trade-off of not having to string the myself beads made it worth it, and the Be Sweet website shows some other colorways with much prettier beads. The beads moved nicely out of the way when I was knitting, and really caused me no trouble at all. The mohair itself is nice and soft, and the only less-than-lovely feeling I had at all was an occasional drag on my very dry hands by the little metallic thread. But even that wasn't too bad.

The yarn did show a little more fuzziness when I pulled out the dropped stitches required by the pattern, but it's mohair, so this is to be expected. The fuzz blurred the effect a little, but I think it's still a pretty little necklace. Judge for yourself: