25 Things You Can Do With A Swatch

[foldedbird]

I've seen some pretty borrrring ideas for what to do with swatches. What do you do with yours? Have you seen some nifty things you can do with them online?

This is the place to post em...

I'll start. In SnB: The Knitters Handbook the first swatch you're told to make is saved for a sunglass cleaner. Debbie tells us to toss it in our purse, because as we all know sunglasses never get dirty in the house. Duh.

So, Re: with your fantastic ideas. For those of you who do not save your swatches and are thrifty knitters who frog the swatch and use it in the project you are swatchin' for, tell us your swatch horror stories, if you have any.

Another idea: new knitters can make a "knitting notebook" or Touch N' Feel Stitch Dictionary (TM). Just put your swatches in clear, reusable envelopes. Punch holes in the envelopes and stick 'em in a 3-ring binder. Add a sheet of paper with notes on how you made your swatch, yarn info, etc. Might also be cool to name that stitch.

23 to go...who's next?

[amigarabita]

my children use them for blankets in their dollhouse. quilting squares are the sheets. --is this what you mean??!

if they are nothing but garter or stockinette i felt them and cut them up for flower pins.

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

i had a gigantic baggie of swatches, until I read in either Felted Knits or Knit One Felt Too that you can felt them and make coasters. so that's what I did with some of them. I was *going* to save them to make a gigantic patchwork-type blanket, but that would take forever...
I'm afraid to use swatches on my glasses b/c I don't want the lenses to scratch (I'm anal about my glasses) .

[beldaraan]

I'm not allowed to post my ideas....JK :D

I rip mine out to do a different kind of swatch. At least, that's what I've been doing so far...and "so far" isn't very far if you know what I mean. I usually practice making mistakes on my swatches or practice a certain type of stitch that's going onto an actual project. Haven't seen the need to keep those. However, I am working on my "knitting journal" and getting it organized. I plan to put some swatches in there for demonstration where I can put notes beside it for whatever purpose I was aiming for at the time.

[KnittingKnut]

Oh geez.....I'm supposed to save my swatches?!? I rip 'em out and then start knitting my pattern...oops!

[Hildegard_von_Knittin]

you don't have to save them! some people don't, some people do.

[brookenic]

Two of my swatches came out nice and were largeand very soft. I used them as baby washcloths.

[yellowness]

I do all sorts of things with swatches, like toss them under the bed, stuff them under piles of paper, tuck them neatly into my yarn stash with stitch holders on them (so that's where all my stitch holders go!), etc.

I use some for pot holders. All my pot handles get hot, and I use an Italian stove top coffee maker that has burned my knuckles more than once... but not with a handy dandy swatch/potholder!

The swatches I'm using for gage testing get frogged for working into the pattern. But mostly because I always eyeball how much yarn I'll need for a project and often end up short (because I usually alter paterns and don't actually go through the bother of calculating how much I'll need, like I really should).

[Egeria]

I generally re-use the swatch in my knitting but occasionally I'll keep it as a samples. I sell my scarves so it's handy to show them the variety of colours and type available.

[oshnpashn]

I'm supposed to follow that part of the directions and actually DO a swatch???? LOLOL.