{"id":1076,"date":"2012-01-07T19:50:01","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T09:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.randomknits.net\/?p=1076"},"modified":"2012-01-07T19:50:01","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T09:50:01","slug":"swatching-for-ella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/?p=1076","title":{"rendered":"Swatching for Ella"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had my first day back at work on Tuesday after the lovely extended Christmas break. On the way to work I stopped at the Post Office. To cheer me up along the way, this was waiting for me.
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\nLuscious. Divine. Soft. Squishy. Droolworthy to the nth degree. I couldn’t wait to get home and wind me up a skein to swatch.
\nI’m going to talk about my method to swatching. Yours might be different. Until I discovered knitting on the internet about 8 years ago, I never bothered. If the pattern called for 4mm needles, I used 4mm needles.
\nI also never wore any of my finished garments, because they never turned out quite right. I gave up on knitting garments, and knit a lot of scarves instead. And baby garments. If they’re a little big, the baby will grow into them eventually, right? It never really occurred to me that the problem might be my gauge.
\nUntil I tried to knit Emily a cabled cardigan about 9 years ago or so. The pattern called for 8ply (DK) doubled and 7mm needles. I ran out of yarn. Like, really, really short of yarn. From memory, I ended up having to buy about 4 extra balls of yarn. I went back to Spotlight and complained about the pattern, assuming they’d got the amount of yarn wrong. The assistant asked me if I’d checked my tension. I’m sure I looked at her blankly.
\nThen when I googled knitting all those fateful years ago and learned about knitting blogs, a whole new world opened up for me. Swatching? Blocking? My knitting underwent a metamorphosis.
\nAlso, I learned that I’m a loose knitter. I always need to go down at least one needle size, sometimes more. No wonder my knitting had never turned out right!
\nSo I now swatch for every single garment I knit. Every. Time. Scarves, socks, shawls? Bah, who cares! Garments? Always!
\nHere’s what works for me.
\nFirst, I collect together every thing I need.
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\nYarn, pattern, needles in a few sizes. Usually the size called for (just in case), always a size smaller, and sometimes a size smaller than that.
\nBecause I almost always get the correct tension on a needle one size smaller than recommended, I start swatching on that. In this case, the pattern calls for 5.5mm (US 9) needles, so I started with a 5mm (US 8).
\nRecommended tension is 18sts and 24 rows over 10cm (4″).
\nMy preferred swatch size is 15cm square. I think that a 10cm square is a little risky for measuring purposes. Sometimes my first or last stitch is a little loose and can be misleading, so to allow a little room for error, I like a 15cm square.
\nAlso, I don’t like to measure plain stockinette. It rolls, sometimes even after it’s been blocked, so it’s hard to measure. So I always add a little garter border to make measuring easier.
\nSo in this case, I decided to cast on 33 stitches. 18sts x 1.5 (to make a 15cm square) = 27 stitches in stockinette, plus 3 sts either side for a garter border.
\nAnd off I go. First observation is that this yarn is so soft it’s amazing. Doesn’t feel like your ordinary, run-of-the-mill wool. But my swatch?
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\nAt this stage, it looks like it’s coming out a little small – 5.5 or 5.75″ instead of 6″. I could stop now and go up to the recommended needle size, but I decide to finish the swatch and see.
\nI work 36 rows in stockinette. 24 rows = 10cm (4″) in recommended gauge, so 24 x 1.5 = 36 rows. I then finish with a few rows of garter stitch for my border and I remeasure my swatch.
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\nUh oh. Right?
\nWrong. It’s a little on the small side, and some knitters would now decide to just use the larger needle. But I’ve been burned before, and I really want my Ella coat to fit nicely. I don’t want it to be too small, but I don’t want it to be too big, either.
\nIf I’m putting in enough work to make a coat, I want it to fit right!
\nSo the final step, which is just as vitally important as any other step is to block my swatch<\/strong><\/u>. Into a warm bubble bath it goes to soak for a little while, then I roll it up in a facecloth and wring out (gently!) the excess water, before I lay it out for a final measurement check.
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\nI guess that warm bubble bath was just as relaxing as it looked. My swatch has grown. Not a lot, but just the right amount! My stitch tension is perfect. My row tension is a tiny bit short, but that’s okay, most of the length is done by measurement instead of row count.
\nIf I’d made a decision early on and gone up a needle size and not blocked my swatch, I’d end up with a coat that’s too big for me. One stitch per 10cm can make a big difference! If you have 180 sts, and your tension should be 18 sts = 10cm, your garment would finish up 100cm. But if you’re getting 17 sts = 10cm, your garment is going to end up nearly 106cm around. That could make a huge difference int he way your garment fits.
\nI’ll probably throw the swatch into the washing machine on a gentle cycle to see if it felts before I finish the real thing. I don’t want to ruin my garment later on!
\nThere are no knitting police! Swatch using whatever method works for you. But I really recommend always doing a swatch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had my first day back at work on Tuesday after the lovely extended Christmas break. On the way to work I stopped at the Post Office. To cheer me up along the way, this was waiting for me. Luscious. Divine. Soft. Squishy. Droolworthy to the nth degree. I couldn’t wait to get home and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.randomknits.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}