Another Lesson in the Importance of Swatching

Most professional knitters — and many other dedicated stitchers — will tell you how important it is to swatch beofre starting a project if you actually want it to fit the body for which it is intended.

Ball bands offer a suggestion of what needle might get you a reasonable gauge, but we all knit differently with different needles and under different circumstances, so it’s important to swatch so you know how many stitches per inch you are getting and how that compares to what the designer intended.

Berroco recently did a swatch experiment with nearly two dozen knitters using the same yarn and the same sized knitting needles. While six knitters got the same stitch gauge as the ball band suggested, fully 18 of them did not, and no one got the same row gauge as the ball band suggested.

The difference between the tightest and the loosest swatches was more than an inch in all directions, which would make a huge difference over the course of a garment.

We know knitting swatches is not that much fun, but it’s kind of like getting a flu shot. Getting a shot is far better than getting the flu; likewise, knitting a swatch is better than knitting a sweater twice because you didn’t get the right gauge the first time.

Do you have any gauge horror stories or times when knitting a swatch saved your bacon? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Berroco.]

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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Next Pattern:

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