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Worked this as part of the Knit Picks Lovers group KAL Sweater Workshop SAMPLER 2013. Have additional comments & links in that thread.

Mar 30
This is my second Sweater Workshop Sampler. After I finished my first one, I saw potential uses for it as a finished project.

We moved into a 31’ RV in November & space is at a premium. We’ve chosen to dramatically reduce our purchase & use of paper towels along with the other new lifestyle changes we would have to adopt. But we’ve found it difficult to keep the small cloths as easy to grab as paper towels on a holder used to be.

So I’m making a smaller Sampler in colors that go well in the RV with the intention of using it as a “towel dispenser.” I’m modifying the beginning of the Sampler to adapt this design to my intended purpose.

I’ve also wanted to make a second Sampler simply because it was an outstanding learning experience when I made my first one a little over four years ago. It firmly established a sense of confidence, courage, & creativity to a degree I’d never have imagined! The number of skills & techniques crammed into this odd project constitutes a knitting course. There are still things to learn, but such a broad range of skills are mastered, they will not be intimidating to attempt.

Seriously. If you bought this book ONLY for the Sampler project, it would be more than worth the time & money! I am of the opinion that few knitters, newbies & seasoned, are likely to find the Sampler to be a waste of time. If you have knitted long enough to have learned any kind of cast on technique and are able to work a knit stitch & a purl stitch… don’t make another dish cloth, scarf, or baby afghan until you have knit this Sampler.

Seriously.

Mar 31
Because I’m intentionally making this one a little smaller I’m going to use Magic Loop rather than a 16” circular. When I made my first one I committed to doing every thing exactly as instructed whether I “already know how to do that” or not & whether I felt I preferred to do the same thing a different way. I wanted to get every little thing I could from this learning experience and expand my “tool box” as much as possible… even if I never implemented a specific skill again.

I’m really happy I approached my first Sampler that way because there were things I was pretty sure I wouldn’t care for, or about which I had preconceived ideas. Committing to do everything I encountered before I started kept me from skipping over experiences & techniques I’ve valued & used often since.

Using the 16” circular rather than the Magic Loop technique I’d already mastered caused me to realize there are at least three ways to knit in the round:
• DPNs are the method of choice for many to knit small circles like socks & sleeves & hats.
• Others prefer Magic Loop to “herding” 4-5 double-pointed needles. (I’m in this second category.)
• Others will choose two circular needles. (Which for me is like knitting with an octopus, but to each his own.)
• Then there is the option of a shorter circular needle to work more stitches, bunching them together so the work goes quickly. Which is how this project is worked.

Doing this project caused me to realize that there are lots of projects I’d fought with to “keep my loop” when I could have simply changed to a shorter circular needle & eliminated the “loop” altogether & work more quickly! Which is what I do now. If it is something I want to try on to check fit, I also make sure I’ve got a circular needle sufficiently long to work all the stitches onto in one round, check fit, and the next round work all the stitches back onto the shorter cable for faster knitting.

I’m sure I would have made this connection eventually but I did it sooner because of this experience. The “down side” is, I’ve expanded my supply of 16” circulars to use for hats & cowls because I discovered I really enjoyed knitting “in the round” over Magic Loop for projects with sufficient stitches to knit without the loop. It may sound like a small thing, but it has been a valuable piece for me.

I swatched to decide what spi (stitch per inch) I wanted for this project. For my first Sampler I had to cast on 80 sts to have enough stitches to work comfortably on a 16” circular with the yarn I was using. This time my bigger concern was the firmness of the fabric.

The yarn band recommends a 5mm needle or hook, but that fabric was way too loose for the intended purpose of this project. It is supposedly an “aran” weight yarn, but I personally find it more of a “light worsted” weight that, for me, works better at a tighter gauge than the ball band suggests for most projects. So I went way down to get a more firm fabric. It is still more loose than I’d like but to go down any further wouldn’t be much fun to work.

I cast on 80 sts & divided half onto the front needle & half onto the back needle to use Magic Loop. (I actually started with 64 sts but found the project to be a little smaller than I wanted. So I restarted with more stitches.)

I worked 1 round knit, then 1 round in - yo, k2together - around followed by another round of knit. This eyelet round will be used to thread a length of elastic at the bottom, keeping our small cloths in but also stretching open to feed them through the bottom as needed. The same idea could be used for plastic shopping bags or something similar. I’ll use a length of elastic that will comfortably fit around my ham-handed hubby, less and inch or so, so he can get up in there to wrangle a cloth out as necessary but will still leave the bottom sufficiently tight to keep everything from climbing out all by itself.

Now I’m back on track with the written instructions…

A lot of people may be tempted to focus on the “anyone who can already knit knows how to do garter stitch, stockinette stitch, & basic ribbing” at the beginning of this project. It feels dumb or a waste of time to “practice” something you probably already know how to do. In addition to a few handy tips slipped in here and there through this “boring” section at the beginning, are key lessons it might be easy to overlook…

… how these stitches behave and affect the fabric. Did you ever really pay much attention to how garter stitch fabric & stockinette stitch fabric interact & impact each other worked side-by-side? Or how changing the ratio of knit-to-purl stitches in ribbing affects the fabric? Do you know which ribbing pattern is the least elastic or how to choose a ribbing that will provide more shaping? If you want to change how the hem of a sweater or the brim of a hat will fit, this is important to understand. Did you realize some stitch patterns need to be worked differently when knit in the round? This and more is addressed in the earliest stages of the Sampler. If you want to modify a written pattern or design your own in the future, understanding how these changes affect the fabric, and therefore the finished project & fit, will be invaluable.

Developing an understanding for why a designer chose a specific stitch or technique is profoundly useful in making a written pattern fit you the way you prefer. This understanding will empower you if you want to alter that pattern to work better for you, or when you just want to “mix it up” by substituting a different stitch pattern. You may want to use an alternate stitch pattern that produces the same kind of fabric (same elasticity/stretch, or lack thereof, for example)… or one that changes the fabric to achieve a different fit or appearance. All stitch patterns are not created equally & one stitch pattern may be completely incompatible worked next to or as part of the same fabric. Knowing this can save lots of tinking, frogging, & tears.

After you complete this Sampler you’ll have a better idea how to make these kinds of changes with confidence & success.

Apr 1
Because I don’t want to create a “bottleneck” in this project, I’ll change to a larger diameter needle to work the ribbing that pulls in a lot for this Sampler. I’ll work the same instructions just change needle size to minimize or eliminate the effect the ribbing would normally create. My finished Sampler may not be as “fishy” looking as it would otherwise. If I weren’t making this Sampler to provide a specific service, I wouldn’t change my needle size for the tighter ribbing stitches because that is the “learning” aspect of this section of the Sampler… how changing the stitches changes the function of the ribbing.

I restarted my Sampler with 80 cast on stitches rather than the 64 I began with. When I got almost to the end of the Twisted Rib section, I decided I would be happier with the Sampler larger than it was coming out. (Smaller, or at least too much smaller, wasn’t going to work the way I’d thought.) It isn’t a huge increase in size, but looking at the stack of cloths I plan to store in it, I decided I’d probably be happier with a little more room at the bottom to feed the cloths through when it was finished and hanging on the wall. In the end, this Sampler may not be all that much smaller than my first one, but the colors will still work better in the motor home and I’m enjoying the process & refreshing my memory of these skills by reworking them without the mini-stress episodes as I approached some of these skills & techniques the first time through. :-)

Since I restarted, I also decided to work 10 rounds of Garter Stitch rather than the 5 in the instructions. Since I’m planning to run elastic through the bottom, it seems like the Garter Stitch section might get “lost” if there are only 5 rounds. Not sure you’ll be able to see it all that much even now, but I think so.

From here, I’ll pretty much be following the core directions for the rest of this Sampler, but I’ll also be adding some stuff she may talk about but doesn’t actually include as part of the Sampler “design” or “spruce up” the design since I’ll be using this as a functional/decorative finished object.

Apr 2
I decided to work the Twisted Rib section in a different color. I like the way it looks & in such a light color the structure of the stitch kind of disappears in the main color I’m using. Also, this will function as a decorative item, so it makes sense to add a little more color.

I chose the lighter of the two contrasting colors so I won’t have the opposite problem of “too dark” to highlight the stitch pattern. I used the “Change of Color” (pg 24) & “Stripes in Ribbing” (pg 29) techniques when changing the color. These are both very useful tips. The “stripes in ribbing” tip I don’t recall seeing anywhere else before I learned it in the Sampler.

I use duplicate stitch to weave yarn ends. Duplicate Stitch is also known as “Swiss Darning” (pg 52); darn the light color ends into the light color stitching, darn the darker color ends into the darker color stitching.

Apr 3
After 10 rounds of Twisted Rib, I worked a round in the Main Color and then I switched to a 4mm needle for 2x2 rib.

I didn’t try any of the ribbing variations in my first Sampler so I’m going to play with it just a little this time. I’m going to change colors with each variety of ribbing to add visual appeal & delineate each one from the other: work a “color change” round between each color change…
• Off White: plain 2x2 rib on 4mm needles; 8 rounds
• Lavender Blue: 2x2 Twisted Rib on 4mm needles; 8 rounds
• Sage: Horizontal p2/k2 Rib on 3.75mm needles; 10 rounds
• Lavender Blue: Garter Stitch Rib; 8 rounds
• Off White: Stockinette; 3 rounds

Apr 4
Short Row section on “back” of Sampler (last half of the round)

• Marker @ “tail side” = right seamline - R marker to L marker = Front
• Marker on other side = left seamline - L marker BACK to R marker = Back

I cast on 7 sts for the Cardigan Border instead of 6… just because. Also, because of how I plan to use this as a finished project, I only worked the “buttonhole side” of the border, working the “button side” in stockinette rather that the ribbing stitch. I did it “right” in my first Sampler & understand the concept.

I also made the “tab” a little taller. If the cloths get caught & I need to poke them down a little toward the bottom, I’m thinking I can unbutton this if needed. So I made the opening a little wider.

I want to make the Sweatshirt (kangaroo) Pocket larger on this Sampler so it might actually be functional in some way. To facilitate that goal, I knit a few extra rounds above the Cardigan Border tab.

Apr 5
I want a larger Sweatshirt Pocket; I’ll use 19 stitches across for this Sampler. It will be taller as well.

For decorative purposes I worked a stitch pattern with an edge border:
• Set-up row: knit
• R1: sl 1 yfwd, k1, yo, k2tog; * k1, p1 to last 4 sts; k2tog, yo, k2
• R2: sl 1 yfwd, k3; p11, k4
• R3: sl 1 yfwd, k3; * p1, k1 to last 4 sts; k4
• R4: sl 1 yfwd, k3; p11, k4
I worked this pattern repeat 6x so there was a little ease in length of the pocket relative to body fabric it covers.

Because I made my pocket wider, I used a 16” 3mm circular needle to pick up the stitches & 3.75mm 8” DPNs to work the pocket flap. I counted off 12 stitches from the right side then picked up 19 stitches for the pocket on the smaller diameter circular & worked the stitches off the circular onto the 3.75mm needles.

I skipped ahead to the knitted belt so I can place that and be done with the bottom part of the Sampler. I’ll work on this the balance of the evening; hopefully I can finish it tonight. Nursing a migraine and the belt is pretty mindless. I don’t trust myself to go ahead to the decrease section tonight, so this is a good way to keep working on the Sampler without screwing up anything. Also, if I were doing better I’d find knitting the belt a little annoying. :-)

Knitted Belt:
It won’t “look right” until you’ve worked at least 12-16 rows, like ribbing, so keep going. This odd stitch pattern creates a fabric that is well constructed for the purpose belts, straps, etc.

Apr 6
The genius of the belt construction is that it is basically 2 i-cords bridged one to the other. (It is pretty much an Applied I-Cord Border that you create the “applied-to part” in between two sets of I-Cord Borders.) Simply hide each yarn end inside the nearest i-cord.

Pay very close attention to the last bind off stitch and how you tie off the end… if you “turn” the stitch so it matches the twist of the earlier “i-cord” stitches, it won’t have an “edge” or appear stretched out of shape. As you work the last several inches of the belt, study how the stitches sit at each end… that the first & last stitches “wrap to the other side.” Work the last two stitches in the bind off so they behave the same way. (I had to fiddle with this to get it to work… you’ll need to do the same because you really have to have it in hand to see/figure out how to make it look right. It isn’t hard, but I had to take a couple of stabs at it before I got it to look “just right.”)

I made my belt much longer than I would have for an empty Sampler. However, my Sampler will be stuffed with a variety of cloths and therefore be bulging more than it would hanging empty. If it proves to be too long, I may simply remove it entirely, or modify the length of this belt by removing the button & deconstructing back to a more appropriate length and rework the eyelet buttonhole & bind off… or find a new function for this belt & work a new one from scratch.

Right now, my belt doesn’t fit well at all. I’ve “pinned it up” inside the pocket so it doesn’t appear quite as bad as it actually is. There is plenty of room to rework the buttonhole if necessary when it is filled with cloths.

Apr 7
I added another 2 rounds of knitting above the Sweatshirt Pocket. I placed markers for my 3 sets of increases of about 26 sts apart (I’m working 80 sts which doesn’t divide by 3 evenly). I tried to place two of the increases evenly on each side of the Sweatshirt Pocket, then evenly from those two in the back for the third set of increases.

I’ll use my favorite M1 increase, (I use the 1st demo almost universally), for Increase B & C, but I’ll use the kfb (bar) increase for Increase A because it works best for two side-by-side increases in adjacent stitches. But, the only one I like is C & that’s on the backside. (poor planning on my part). I actually considered working Increase C-B-A, in reverse order because I already knew I didn’t like Increase A worked as close together as they are in the Sampler. If they are spaced at least 2-3 rows apart, they don’t look bad at all. But placed practically on top of each other they look messy to me. I prefer Increase B to Increase A and Increase C to Increase B, in terms of “clean” appearance.

Apr 8
Worked the Knit and the Purl stripe section last night. Not certain I will get to the “textured” stripe today or not. If I do, it will probably be late in the day.

If you are concerned about “jogs” in your stripes knit in the round, you can implement a “jogless stripe” technique that will help minimize the “jog” at the point of the change between two colors in a round.

When I do the Raised Stripes, I will only do the “Rounds 1, 2, 3, 4” part together (pg 41). As I recall, the only thing I didn’t particularly care for at all in my first Sampler were these raised-textured stripes. Just a personal taste thing… I simply didn’t particularly care for the finished effect. Which isn’t to say I won’t ever do them in a project at some point, just that my initial impression was that I wasn’t an instant convert. Because I’ve already added extra length to my Sampler with additional ribbing and some extra stockinette rounds here and there, I’m going to bypass a little of these stripes because it just seems like a good place to cut. I don’t want to eliminate them entirely though, because it has been 4 years and a lot of knitting later and it is possible I might feel differently about them now.

Apr 9
Raised Stripes still may not be my favorite technique, but I do have a better appreciation for it than I did the first time, and I can see a possible use for some projects. A great way - for example - for me to use some small amounts of hand spun yarn DD made for me. I’ve got small amounts, too little to use as a primary yarn in a color I really like in fiber I absolutely cannot wear against my skin. But the raised stripe sits almost entirely above the fabric. I think I’ve got enough to use maybe to detail a hat? Hmmm…

I decided to do R1&2 in Sage, R3&4 in Amethyst, then for visual balance, repeated R1&2 in Sage. I have to admit; although they still aren’t my favorite, I like them much better worked together like this in these colors!

Oh, btw, yes. You do knit a “color change” round before you work the Raised Stripe steps too… for each color change you work. So, each “stripe” is actually composed of three rounds: color change (k), R1&2 (or, R3&4, depending on the look you want). That color change round also functions as a set-up round for the next 2 rounds that compose the stitch sequence for each stripe and eases the tension for that stripe. (* You’ll understand that better when you work it yourself)

Apr 10
I worked 3 rounds in the main color above the Raised Stripes. Then placed markers about 24 stitches apart, set so that two set of decreases will be balanced on the front & two balanced on the back. Because this will be a decorative object, I will use the two decrease sets I like best on the front, two others on the back side. That was all I could manage today.

Apr 11
I chose these decreases in this order:
A - Raglan Seamline E
B - Raglan Seamline B
C - Raglan Seamline B-Reverse
D - Raglan Seamline A

A & B are on the front, C & D are on the back… I wanted to use the “prettiest” ones on the back & two others on the back chosen somewhat arbitrarily.

However, I work SSK: slip as if to knit, slip as if to purl, knit together… the two sides match better that way.

I worked these decreases until I had 66 sts. I worked another knit round. I need a number of stitches divisible by 8 for the Two-Color Knitting section. The next highest number from 66 divisible by 8 is 72. Subtract 66 from 72… I need to add 6 stitches in the next round to have 9 sets of 8 stitches. So I’ll work a M1 increase after each 11 stitches.

Stranded colorwork is a frustration when one has ADHD. I try so hard to pay especially close attention to every stitch… and still have to tink & frog. It looks like I’m following the pattern in each row and then… I look at it and clearly doesn’t look the way it ought to. Somewhere, somehow, my attention wandered. Despite my best efforts. Still, I enjoy stranding the colors from stitch to stitch… don’t ask me why. I suppose that’s a good thing… since I have to redo the same rows over & over to get it right. ::sigh:: I did a pair of mitts in stranded colorwork & even though they aren’t perfect, (even after basically knitting same pair multiple times before they were off needle), that is basically my limit. A hat, mitts, maybe a small pouch or bag. I’d hang myself with the yarn before I’d do an entire sweater stranded! But it sure is pretty ! :-)

Apr 15
Ok. Decided to take a break to figure out exactly how I wanted to proceed. I saw that the back side of my 2-color work was off. It was on the back side, which would be hanging against the wall. Which, for any “normal” person, would have been sufficient reason to simply go forward & finish the project. But I knew I knew it wasn’t right & it would bug me. It is only 5 rounds of knitting on a relatively small circumference. “Just fix it.”

If it was only that the stitching was off on the backside, I might have been able to talk myself out of frogging back. However, I also wasn’t satisfied with my color choice. I worked the “heart border” in purple & decided to work the colorwork rounds in sage & off white & do the Swiss Darning detail in purple. It was pretty, but seemed a little washed out. I felt the lavender & off white with sage “dots” would be more striking in contrast.

But I’ve learned not to rip too quickly because about half the time I wish I hadn’t, even when it seemed to be a particularly good idea at the time. It was late, I was tired, and maybe in daylight the contrast would seem sufficient… I might feel differently if I wait till the next day.

The next day I had a migraine & found I was basically feeling a little grumpy about the whole deal in general. When I’m feeling like that I’ve definitely got to sit with it & do something else until my attitude improves.

Apr 13th I had decided I’d definitely be happier in the long term if I frogged back & changed to the purple for colorwork for sure. But it was evening by the time I realized I was feeling really positive about getting back to it & DH was sitting next to me. I’ve realized I try not to frog large sections when he’s right here because he seems so honestly dismayed when I do. “Oh NO! You had to RIP? I’m so sorry!” I swear it feels like it is more distressing for him than it is for me! LOL! On the other hand, there are occasions when I kind of need that sympathy & wait until he is right here. It provides a perverse comfort for the gruesome deed. :-)

But this time I’d waited till I felt good about the decision & decided to save the ripping & setup to continue for the Sunday-new-Dr-Who-show at DD’s. Which provided the additional comfort of confirmation about my decision along with an appropriate measure of empathy for the deed.

I took pix of the current progress since I had both a really nice sunbreak with almost no headache at the same time. Hope to be able to edit those, along with several other project pix & post them to my Profile before we leave PDX. It will be great to be able to use DD’s internet rather Starbuck’s or something. Hope to finish the Sampler in the next few days so I can take final pux & focus some time on prepping all pix for posting. We leave in 2 wks & there is still a lot to do at the storage units.

Yarn Yoga tonight. Not certain that is a useful venue to do the colorwork but plan to take it with me anyway for Show-&-Tell. This may be my last YY for awhile because I’ve not worked out a good way to get from the coast into PDX yet. Will have to see if I can work that out when we get there. There is no way I can bear an entire summer with no DGD time!

… Later… Well color me stunned! I actually finished the colorwork completely * during* Yarn Yoga, correctly!!! I am speechless! I fully expected to have to frog & redo it again.

I remembered that I’d kind of been thrown off by the way the word instructions are written. I should have followed the graph instead. The pattern is basically sets of 5-3 sequences for two rounds, one round alternate colors, two more rounds with sets of 5-3 sequences.

The key is to know if the sequence for this round is 5-3 or 3-5, and to know if the 5 is a solid or alternated pattern & if the 3 is a solid or alternated pattern. Then you can work the round from memory when understand that each round starts somewhere in the middle of a pattern & ends by completing the pattern. As soon as I snapped to that, I could listen to the conversation in YY & successfully work the colorwork at the same time. Yay me!

Apr 17
I’m glad I changed to the darkest color with the lightest color for the colorwork section. I hadn’t factored in the visual “muting” the light stitches would bring to sage color. It was very pretty & in a different project I might prefer the softer effect. But I’m really happy I frogged back & changed it for this project.

This underscores the importance of swatching before you launch into a colorwork project! Make sure the colors you want/need to stand out will when sitting next to the other colors in the project, because they might not to the degree you wanted them to.

Also, each color will have some kind of impact on the colors right next to other, that can actually cause the colors to appear to be completely different than they actually are. The only way to know for certain how the colors you’ve chosen will work together is to work them together.

There are a number of ways, though, to make educated guesses to help you chose colors to purchase for your colorwork project. I highly recommend “Essential Guide to Color Knitting Techniques” by Margaret Radcliffe as the best all-purpose “working with color in yarn” book I’ve found. Almost any kind of colorwork you may like to try, you’ll find all the basic info you’ll need. The first chapter of the book is worth the cost of the book for the incredibly accessible “color theory,” presented from the perspective of working with yarn specifically, I’ve found anywhere.

When you work the Swiss Darning stitches, don’t work them too tightly or too loosely. Worked too tightly, they will be practically invisible. Worked too loosely, they will appear sloppy. Find the sweet spot for maximum impact.

However, be careful on the sides: it is really easy to get too snug, especially on the side you don’t change colors, which may kind of distort the stitches. If you are used to snugging stitches so you don’t get laddering on the sides, you may be more likely to overcompensate with color stranding. Ymmv.

On the backside, I worked the yarn under carry-over stitches before each duplicate stitch on the right side of the fabric. Btw, I loosely measured off a length of contrasting yarn 6x as wide as the colorwork section to do the Swiss Darning. I left about an 8” tail to start the work & had plenty when I finished. When I finished the duplicate stitches I gave the colorwork band a couple of firm tugs on each side & top-bottom to loosen up the stitches.

The eyelet round was completely uneventful, but I knit 7 round above that.

I wanted to position the four bind offs so they appear best in use. I’ve never been completely happy with everything at the top of my original Sampler, in terms of placement.

For the Cast Offs, I had a total of 72 stitches, so I had more than four sets of 16 sts for each bind of segment. So I had some room to play with the placement of each.

For this Sampler, I want the Lace Cast-Off a little off-center to the right so I’ve started that section 6 sts from the back. I still worked 16 lace sts, but 6 from the back & 10 from the front. Because I worked the lace in a different color, I knit across those 16 stitches so I could actually work the Initialed Hem first in the main color.

I set aside 20 sts for the Initialed Hem. I choose to work a picot edge for extra glitz. I worked these cast off stitches first. I knit the first & last stitch so there wouldn’t be a yo on either edge; yo before the last knit st for balance. This hem is worked in the main color. The initials are worked in lavender.

I set 22 sts aside for the Knitted Cord Cast Off. I wanted it to start just a little from the front, so I worked this right after the Initialed Hem.

Finally, I worked the final 14 sts in the Ribbed Cast Off, starting with 2 purl sts. From the front, you’ll see this hem section beginning & ending in knit sts.

Apr 20
Have only 2 things left: the Lace Cast Off & Afterthought Pocket. Not certain when I’m going to be able to get to them.

Annoying to be so close and not be able to finish! We are running out of time to finish things at the storage units before we leave & we aren’t certain we’ll be back in town until fall. We’d hoped to get everything out of one unit and everything into only the other one. Not sure that is a realistic goal. :-/ We will, however, at the very least, be able to get a much smaller unit for whatever we can’t jam into the first unit because we absolutely will not need all the space of the second one. So we can at least cut the expenses until we come into town for a week at a time over the winter months.

At any rate, it is taking a lot of time and energy to take care of that until we run out of time. I’m so tired when I get spend a day over there I don’t care to knit or crochet. I barely care to stay awake. But I am anxious to get this done, get the elastic run through the bottom, get it hung up & in use.

When I do the Afterthought Pocket, I plan to do it wider than the instructions… probably not much deeper, but a few stitches wider.

I have to say, I really didn’t expect to find this as much fun to do again, but I’ve actually enjoyed it more the second time than I did the first time. And by using more color in this one I’ll have yarn left over in the main color when this is complete, which I didn’t actually plan. I got two skeins of the main color. Didn’t expect I’d use much of it, but definitely thought I’d need at least a little. This Sampler will be longer than my first one because of the extra stuff I added this time.

If I were going to do this again, I’d cast on more stitches and make it fatter, not as long. But, I’m very pleased with it & hope it will serve us the way I have in mind. If not… maybe I’ll make a third one! If I do, I’d leave some things out and work it entirely to suit my purposes, not so much for the learning aspects. You could modify this idea for for all sorts of purposes if you think about it for a while.

May 25
Finished the i-cord for the top & the final lace bindoff. Have the Afterthought Pocket & running the elastic through the bottom edge to complete this.

May 26
Didn’t take me nearly as long to finish the Afterthought Pocket as it did with my first Sampler! Much less intimidating this time! I worked it in Magic Loop and added a couple extra stitches. Not sure what purpose it will ever play but I wanted it to be just a smidge larger in case I think of some purpose in the future.

Ran skinny elastic through the eyelets at the bottom and secured the ends. Now. Just to decide exactly where we want it to hang, place a hook… and hang it.

Very pleased with the colors. I do wish I’d used more stitches & made it “fatter” but hopefully the length won’t be a functional issue. Other than that, I’m extremely pleased I made the time to make a second one and especially that I expanded some of the component parts in this one, “dressing it up” a little. If you are making your first one, don’t hesitate to play with some of the other potential elements referenced throughout the Sampler instructions. Many will only make a single Sampler, so take advantage of all the potential skills that you find of interest.