WIP Wednesday: Practice swatch

It's been over a week since I've knit on anything. When nothing's going right, it's good to take a step back for a while. I feel like my first project getting back into the swing of things should be one of my favorite things to knit. I love knitting color work, and it's about that time for me to start thinking about my annual Christmas sweater. I've planned out the color pattern and even picked out the yarn. But there are a couple things I plan on doing that I've never done.

I’ve said it before, but I am a big fan of practicing a technique before coming to it in my project. There's nothing more stressful than attempting something I'm not too sure about on a project I've already put a lot of time and effort into. Plus, if I know I'm coming to something I hadn't planned for, I put it off then a year later wonder what happened to that one sweater I was knitting that one time.

For my Christmas sweater there are two things that are semi new to me. Small diameter stranded color work and steeking with superwash yarn.

In the past when I've done small circumference stranded knitting, the areas where the joins were had awful tension issues. Apparently, there's a technique to fix that. And it's so easy, but did take some getting used to.

I've done steeks before, my very first garment I knit had steeks. Cutting my knitting is no big deal to me. BUT I've never secured my steek with a sewing machine and it’s a must when you're using superwash, non-sticky yarn. Can you imagine me cutting into my knitting, probably on Christmas Eve, and having my sweater starting to fall apart? It makes me sick just thinking about it.

What do you guys do when you're unfamiliar with a technique in a project. Do you dive right in and worry about it when you get to it, or do you plan ahead and practice it first?

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