The Mighty Little Gauge Swatch

I will come clean right away. I haven’t always respected the mighty little gauge swatch. Because I am a straight arrow, and all the patterns tell you to make a gauge swatch, I usually did. Especially when I was a brand new knitter and I couldn’t tell the difference between yarns or fibers or knitted fabrics. So now that I am gaining confidence, I started getting lazy. I would quickly cast on 20 stitches, knit, knit, knit, dutifully BO because “Are you going to be wearing the knitting needles?” as one book commanded, and then measure quickly. I would lay my metal gauge “calculator” on the fabric, see that, yes, I was at 4 stitches per inch (because many books would say stitch gauge is more important that row gauge) and then cast on for my project.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) this slap, dash system worked well enough that no alarm bells started ringing for some time. But then I started consistently getting finished items that were too big. Really too big. How can that be? I DID knit a gauge swatch for crying out loud. And my other skills in knitting land were improving but who cares if the finished item is made to fit an elephant?

So, that is what this blog entry will attempt to help with: understanding what the goals of a test swatch are besides merely following the rules.

How do you know if you have the proper gauge? This was also an issue that plagued me in my young knitting life. I still don’t do a terrific job at this, but I am finally learning some. As we know, the wrapper around the yarn gives us the manufacturer’s idea of what the gauge should be for that particular yarn. As I found out, though, one worsted weight yarn is dramatically different from another supposedly worsted weight yarn. This drove me crazy. Nevertheless, I tried to get the gauge stated on the wrapper. If I needed more stitches, I switched to a smaller needle. If I needed fewer stitches per inch, I would switch to a larger needle.

Note that this is only a starting point. Don’t think this is Knitting Law, that you can only use this yarn at that gauge the yarn company has printed on their label. One yarn in particular I have worked with (names withheld to protect the guilty), the wrapper said it was a bulky weight yarn and it was the most standard worsted weight yarn you have ever seen at 4 stitches = 1”. There was no way this yarn could pull off 3 stitches = 1” on its best day, 4.5 stitches maybe, but bulky? No.

When you hold the swatched fabric in your hand (another reason why you have to bind off) how does the fabric feel? Is it too floppy? I find if I can see through it too easily, there is too much “air” between each stitch, then the gauge is too loose.

The desired fabric must also be considered. Picture a thin sock yarn. Do you want a dense fabric for a sock or a light and airy lace scarf? Two entirely different size needles are needed with that same yarn for two very different fabrics.

Here is what I am finding is as important as knitting the gauge swatch: washing the gauge swatch. And I don’t mean merely make it damp and call it good. I mean treat it EXACTLY like it is a sweater you have spend a thousand hours on so that when you do spend a thousand hours on a sweater it will be the size you want.

This is where I royally screwed up for years. I never treated the swatch like a finished knitted item. No more. Now I soak it and treat it quite roughly, pinning it tightly to an old towel or bed or whatever (if you have a fancy blocking board, extra points for you). I find that I really like to stretch my finished items so they are smooooooooth. I love look of the fabric, how other stitches pop and everything gets evened out and looks like a million bucks.

This lovely little last point explains why none of my finished items fit like I wanted them too. I never washed my swatches. I maybe spread them out a bit with my fingers but never wanted to take the time to wash them.

To make myself slow down a bit and treat this whole swatch business a bit more seriously, I knit 4 or 5 swatches from different yarns at the same time. This way I feel like I am not wasting time waiting for one to soak, but just think of how much information I will have when I have tested 5 yarns!

To persuade you fully as to why you want to wash your swatches, here are some startling differences: (all these swatches I am referring to, the numbers are for stockinette stitch)

For this lovely first swatch, the unwashed gauge was 5.5 stitches and 7 rows = 1” with size 5 needles. Especially since this was a smaller stitch count than I usually knit with, I didn’t think washing would make a difference. Not so! After washing, the gauge was 5 stitches and 7 rows = 1”. I was shocked there was ½ stitch difference! We all know what that can do to your sweater. Sigh. And now that I see how much air is between each stitch, I could probably go down one more needle size comfortably to make a denser fabric if I needed to.

Here is another sample:

The top half is knit in US size 6 needles and the bottom with US size 7. I was pleased with the fabric with the size 6 needles because there wasn’t nearly the air around the stitches that there was with the 7s. Before I washed it, gauge was 5 stitches and 6 rows = 1” with the 6s. After washing, gauge was 4.5 stitches and 7 rows = 1”.

When measuring, a trick I learned from Maggie Righetti, is to measure the whole fabric and then divide by the number of stitches. I ignore each weird end stitch when I measure. She says calculating gauge this way prevents the distortion of the fabric that can easily happen when pressing down on the fabric with the metal measuring tool. Also, I find the average gives you more hope at an accurate gauge.

Another item to note is what type of needles you used for knitting. Metal needles and wood needles grab your yarn differently and can affect the size of your stitches and, consequently, your gauge.

It used to drive me crazy to find a swatch and not know what size needles I used. I learned in a magazine: put the number of knots in the trailing thread as to match the number of the needle size you used. I can’t tell you how much this has saved me. Or, if you have different needle sizes for the same color yarn, it makes life that much easier as well. I know many people who just use different needles with the same swatch and sometimes I do that. Hence, the above swatch.

However, on the next two examples I thought I was really smart and would only need to knit one sample swatch, only to find out I wasn’t even close to the recommended gauge. So I had to knit another swatch. And that is why I have to knot my hanging thread.

This large swatch was when I was in love with my new yarn, happy as can be and then found my fabric was way too loose. How could I tell? My gauge was much larger than stated on the label. I was supposed to have 5 stitches to an inch but only had 4.5 stitches. I wouldn’t be that concerned if I liked the fabric. But I didn’t like the fabric because when I moved it in my hands it was way too floppy and far too much air was in each stitch — I saw through the fabric way too easily.

Now this is my swatch with a one size smaller needle. It made a remarkable difference with a gauge of 5 stitches per inch. (Notice how much smaller in general this swatch is? I was sick of the whole thing by this time.) The fabric had much more form and I could hardly see through it, yet wasn’t so stiff it was bullet proof. Why does it matter? If the fabric is too floppy or too stiff it won’t hang properly. Another reason you want a stiffer fabric overall, however, is there is less wear on the yarn. The looser the stitches, I learned from a book or magazine, the more wear on the yarn because it moves more.

Here are two examples where changing a needle size didn’t make nearly the difference in the fabric as the above example.

Both samples have 35 stitches and you can see there wasn’t much difference in the length. The top sample used US size 5 needles and was 5.25 stitches per inch. The yarn’s wrapper told me I wanted 5 stitches to an inch. The fabric was okay, but I thought I would try a 4. The size 4 needle’s sample was 4.8 stitches = 1”. I can tell that fabric is denser, but not nearly as dramatically. Both look fine and, frankly, that is great by me. In this instance, I would be happy to use this yarn with either size needle even though it is still a dramatic half a stitch difference between needle sizes. But I wouldn’t have been happy with either fabric with the previous samples discussed.

Hope this helps in getting a bit more control of your knitting. Of course, no matter what we do, there is that bit of knitting that we can’t control, no matter how diligent we are in swatching. Another source told me that how stressed out we are also impacts our knitting stitches. But I am hoping for one less elephant sweater. That would be a victory.