From long experience, I know that I’m a loose knitter. Uh, let me rephrase that. I know that I knit fairly loosely, because I pull on the yarn with hardly any force at all as I form each stitch. For worsted weight, I typically use a size 4/3.50 mm needle to get the typical 5 spi.
Tag Archives: Swatching
Swatching: General Considerations
Yes, the s-word. Most of us don’t like swatching, because it feels like a waste of time. In some cases, it probably is. There are plenty of projects that don’t need swatching, as long as we’re willing to live with the consequences. Shawls and scarves don’t need swatching, unless we’re concerned about yarn chicken or really want the FOs to be a particular size or have a particular drape. Even hats, gloves, and mittens don’t need swatching, if we’re willing to find heads or hands that will fit in them—and if we’re not super-concerned about the warmth of the items if our fabric is a little looser that it ought to be.
The Needle Size to Get Gauge
Please, oh please, do not feel compelled to get gauge using the needle size listed in the pattern or on the yarn’s ball band.
This is one reason to keep extensive notes of your projects. You’ll be able to look back and see that for worsted-weight yarn, you almost always use a size 4 needle to get five stitches per inch in stockinette stitch (which is what I almost always need, even though most projects and ball bands recommend size 5 to size 8). If your next project in worsted-weight yarn suggests a size 6 needle to get 5 sts/in in stockinette, you can be pretty confident that your trusty size 4 is what you’ll really need.
I’m in no way suggesting you use your project history to skip making a gauge swatch, as annoying as making gauge swatches usually is. I’m simply making the point that knowing your typical gauge in various weights of yarn will help you get knitting faster.
What Will Happen When Your Project Gets Wet?
Why can’t you skip swatching? Because we can never tell how a specific yarn will react when it gets washed.
One yarn I absolutely love changed width quite a bit when I washed it. I swatched by casting on and knitting about 4 inches on the sleeve, to both give me a swatch and to see if the patterns were more trouble than they were worth. The patterns were OK, but the sleeve diameter went from 3.625 inches before washing to 4 inches after–an expansion of just over 10 percent. That doesn’t sound like much, until you realize that a 40-inch sweater would wind up being 44 inches around instead!