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A better use for swatches!

I sometimes swatch, but not that much recently. I have many of my old swatches, which I was keeping for no particular reason. I have taken to keeping little baggies of yarn in case I have to do repairs, I am still patching things from last year's moth problem. I was considering doing a swatch for my next project (I'm knitting the Clam tunic Clam tunic as a dress). The gauge seemed like something I was not going to match, so I figured either cast on and risk ripping, or swatch. And then I realised that a swatch is the perfect place to store yarn for later use. it won't get accidentally used on a charity knit, its not unknit yarn hanging about and getting tangled. 

While I had all my old swatches out to take this photo I noticed that one of them is for a jumper of Leon's that I patched last week with the closest yarn I could find, rather than the exact yarn that was sitting there all the time!

As for my swatch:

It gave me 26 stitches for 10 cm before washing and 24 stitches (pattern gauge!) after washing. which sounds great, but once I'd relaxed into the pattern I'm getting 24 stitches before washing. So basically, this dress might be a bit oversized, but we shall see when i'm further into it.

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