For example, say that the designer is working with a gauge of 5 stitches per inch, and you are getting 5.25. That's not much difference, is it? Well, let's work it out.
5 stitches per inch for a 36 inch sweater means it will take 5 x 36 stitches, or 180 stitches total for the front and back. At your gauge of 5.25 stitches per inch, 180 divided by 5.25 =34.28 inches. So the sweater will by smaller by about 1 3/4 inches.
Gauge is stitches per inch.
To find out the total number of stitches you need, multiply stitches per inch times the number of inches.
To find out the total number of inches of a piece, divide the total number of stitches by the number of stitches per inch.
Any good pattern will tell you what gauge it is calculated on. It also always tells you what size needle was used. That doesn't tell you for sure that you will get the same gauge with the same needles, even if you use exactly the same yarn. Knitters vary in how tight or loosely they hold the yarn, and how tight or loose the stitches are.
Special note for beginning knitters: As your hands are learning to hold the needle and the yarn your gauge will slowly change. You may start out knitting tightly, and relax as you learn, making your gauge looser. You may start out with soft loopy stitches and smooth and tighten them as you learn, making your gauge smaller. So it's good to start with scarves or something where actual size is not very important. Some people are also more affected by stress or relaxation than others, and may knit significantly tighter or looser depending on their mood and circumstances.
It is much easier to change the needle size than it is to change the way your brain and hands work.
What you are checking when you make a gauge swatch is whether you get the same gauge the designer did with the same needles, or whether you need different needles. If you are getting more stitches per inch than the given gauge, you need bigger stitches, therefore, you need bigger needles. If you are getting fewer stitches per inch than the designer did, you need smaller needles, to make your stitches smaller.
Option 2 - This is the most effective way if you are designing your own, and don't have someone else's gauge to match. Cast on 20 stitches and work in stockinette, or in pattern if it's a very textured pattern, for 20 rows. Then use that to calculate your gauge. If working with a bulky yarn, you can get an accurate gauge with 15 stitches and 15 rows.
Number of stitches divided by number of inches gives you gauge. Carry the division out to two decimal places, but you can round up or down to the nearest quarter of a stitch per inch.
In addition to making sure you are getting the right gauge, you are also checking the qualities of the yarn. Not every yarn can make every gauge. Or rather it can, but the texture of the resulting fabric may feel flimsy if the gauge is too big for the yarn, or it may feel like cardboard, if the gauge is too small for the yarn. You also note such things as whether the yarn splits easily, or breaks with much tension or doesn't flow smoothly on the needles, and you are warned early of difficulties. Many knitters will buy a single ball of a yarn they are considering and swatch with it before buying the whole sweater's or afghan's worth of yarn.
You notice I haven't said much about row gauge in all this. That's because row gauge is pretty much a consequence of the kind of stitch you use and can't be controlled separately from the stitch gauge. Sometimes row gauge is important, but mostly you can just measure inches rather than rows and get good results. If your stitch gauge is right, your row gauge will be fine.
In stockinette stitch, the shape of the single stitch is a rectangle rather than a square. The stitch is wider than it is tall and the ratio of width to height is 4:3. So if you are knitting stockinette at 3 stitches to the inch, the row gauge will be 4 rows to the inch. This ratio holds for any gauge in stockinette. The rule of thumb is 3 sts/4 rows to the inch, 4sts/6 rows, 5sts/7 rows, 6sts/8 rows.....
Other texture stitches will change the stitch to row ratio. Garter stitches are really squashed. You can figure it will take twice as many rows per inch as it takes stitches per inch in garter stitch. That's one reason why garter stitch is often counted by ridges rather than rows.
Using this information, you can change the size of the garment to fit you personally, you can use a different yarn at a different gauge than the one specified, or you can design your own entirely from a schematic diagram of what you want.
| copyright cjwyche, 2000-2006 These patterns and documents are essentially learning tools and I favor free access to knowledge on the internet, I have placed them on this web page under Copyleft|GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later version). This means you have permission to freely download, ocpy and use content from this web site under the same License. Any creative changes you make to this source material cannot be copyrighted, but must also be freely distributed under the License. |
Modified: 2006-02-03
|