Swatching is probably the most important step you may take when knitting or crocheting a garment for yourself or that special knitworthy person. Skipping this crucial step could result in ill-fitting sweaters, way too small shawls, or wrong size sleeves. Our time is precious and we want to love what we create, so promise me you won't skip this important step!
Here are a few tips to guide you through the process...
Set Aside the Time
Swatching takes time and if you struggle with the patience for swatching, it may be helpful to dedicate an afternoon or evening in advance of your cast-on date to knit, block, and, if necessary, troubleshoot your swatch in one chunk of time. It’s helpful to remind yourself at this stage, too, that swatching is actually saving time (and undue stress) for your future self.
Making Your Swatch
The goal of swatching is to simulate the fabric of your finished garment as closely as possible. For this reason, it is important to knit your swatch under the same conditions you plan to knit your project -- using the yarn you plan to use for your project, and the suggested needles (or what you feel will be the right size to achieve gauge).
Make and measure a gauge swatch that won’t lie - aim for at least 6"/15 cm square in the stitch pattern you need to measure from your pattern. While knitting patterns almost exclusively refer to gauge over a 4-inch square, you’ll have better results creating swatches a bit larger than this standard. A generous swatch ensures your 4-inch measurement will be more accurate and won’t be distorted by edge stitches.
And resist the urge to measure your gauge before your swatch is bound off. In-progress swatches will not give an accurate finished gauge reading, and if you need to be frugal with your yardage, remember you can always unravel your swatch later if you find you need more yarn to finish your project.
Swatching for Working in the Round
When your project is knit in the round, you really need to knit your swatch in the round too. This provides an accurate gauge swatch rather than when knitting flat. Between the two our tension can very much change knitting versus purling.
So let's do a little “Speed Swatching”! This allows an accurate representation of circular knitting without casting on a large number of stitches. Here’s how:
Using a circular needle, cast on the desired number of swatch stitches (the 6” principle discussed above also applies here) and knit one row. Rather than joining the work to knit in the round, slide the live stitches back to the rightmost tip of the needle. Leaving a long tail floating loosely across the back, bring the yarn to the other end and knit from the first stitch on the needle, across your row of stitches again. Repeat sliding and bringing your yarn back to the tip of the needle, for the desired number of rounds. Note that you are knitting all rounds from the Right Side, just as you will be when working a circular garment.
As you work you may notice your selvedge stitches are loose and messy — it’s good to get into the habit of tidying up your edge stitches every few rounds to keep them neat. Some knitters find that stitches along one selvedge edge are looser than the other, but both sides should be snugged up as you work for best results. If you’re swatching stranded fabric with two colors, knit the first and last two stitches of every round with both colors held together. This will lock each of your colors securely at either end of your swatch and your gauge will not be affected by these doubled edge stitches.
When you’ve worked the necessary number of rounds in your swatch, bind off all stitches. The back of your speed swatch will have several long floats draping across the back -- one float for every round worked.
Use scissors to cut the long floats at the back of your swatch down the center in order to allow your swatch to lie completely flat. The “fringe” created after you cut can be trimmed cleanly at each edge to make blocking your swatch more manageable. Block and finish your swatch as outlined below.
Blocking Your Swatch
Block your swatch in the same manner you will use when finishing the final garment, whether by steaming or wet-blocking. You may wish to pin the corners of your swatch, or even use blocking wires along the sides of your swatch, to get a clean finish with straight edges. This will improve the ease and accuracy of measuring your final gauge. Unless your particular pattern calls for stretch blocking, avoid the temptation to stretch your swatch while blocking as you want to capture the fabric’s natural, relaxed gauge.
Blocking is a particularly important step when swatching for colorwork projects. You will want to make sure that your swatch contains all of the colors you plan to use in your project, and wet-block the swatch to see if any bleeding occurs so that you know whether precautionary measures to fix the dye in your yarn are necessary.
A post-blocking rest period is also good practice, particularly for yarns with a bounce and spring that will often retract slightly after blocking. If possible, allow the fabric 12-24 hours to relax after drying/unpinning before taking final measurements.
Measuring Your Finished Gauge
Lay your swatch flat on a smooth surface. Use a ruler to count the number of stitches within 4"/10 cm across the center of the fabric. (Avoid flexible measuring tapes as they can stretch over time and give less accurate readings than rigid measuring devices.) This is your stitch gauge over 4"/10 cm. To obtain your stitch gauge over 1"/2.5 cm, divide this stitch count by 4.
To measure your row gauge, rotate your ruler 90 degrees and, aligning your ruler with the top of a stitch from the center of the swatch, count the number of stitches within 4"/10 cm. As before, divide this number by 4 to calculate your row gauge over 1"/2.5 cm, if desired.
If you’re measuring gauge in a repeating pattern such as lace or cables, it can also be helpful to measure the width and height of a given repeat. If you have an 18-stitch cable panel that measures 3″ wide, your stitch gauge in pattern is 6 stitches per inch, which will be different than your gauge in a section of stockinette or moss stitch within the same garment (because cables involve crossing groups of stitches over one another, they require more stitches per inch than non-cabled fabrics).
Making Adjustments (If Necessary)
Now that you’ve determined your swatch’s gauge, compare your stitches and rows per inch to your pattern’s gauge requirements. Is it a perfect match? Do you have more stitches within four inches than you should? Less?
If you count more stitches per inch on your swatch than is required for pattern gauge, you will need to swatch with a larger needle.
If there are fewer stitches per inch, you will need to use a smaller needle to achieve correct gauge.
If either scenario occurs, repeat the swatching process, adjusting the needle size accordingly.
If your stitch gauge is correct but your row gauge is off, we recommend trying a needle of the same size but in a different material for your next swatch. The type of needle used (wood, aluminum, bamboo, carbon, etc.) is a common cause of row gauge variance due to the the surface resistance of your needles (how smooth or “grippy” they are) affects your tension as you knit.
Gauge not quite right??? Here are some things to consider about your swatch:
Calculate the impact of the gauge you’re getting. How do the width and length of the garment change if you use this yarn and needle combo?
If your stitches are 15% wider and 10% longer than the pattern calls for, what does that do to the finished measurements for your size? How about adjacent sizes?
If you’d be happy with the result or the result is easy to adjust, you’re ready to cast on.
Important - don’t forget lengths. We think of stitches first, but it’s rare for knitters to get stitch and row gauge both exactly.
Be aware of which (stitch gauge or row gauge) is more important to the pattern. How will the yoke or armhole depth change? It’s easy to adjust the hem to the underarm, but it’s important to know whether your arm will fit in the garment - or if the underarm will be way down by your lower rib!
Final tips
Do not plan to ‘knit loose’ or ‘knit tight.’ We really can nott control our gauge that well throughout a project. Let the needles determine your tension and change the needles until you get the best fabric possible for your yarn.
Sometimes our row gauge is too short and our stitch count is too wide. For whatever reason, different yarns sometimes assume different shapes. If this happens, you’re probably on target - when you wear the garment it is likely to stretch down some, or at least be amenable to some coaxing in the blocking process. Try knitting a sleeve and see how it blocks out.
There are a lot of elements and details to consider when swatching but doing the work and reviewing how your yarn is behaving helps you tremendously to know what you need to do to achieve that perfect look and fit you are aiming for as you cast on your next project!
Happy Swatching!
xo, Crystal
Such a good tutorial and I hear the words of caution - but I won’t lie - I still hate swatching. 😁