You make a swatch, block it, count the number of stitches and rows in a 10cm / 4″ square, make sure the gauge is close to the one recommended in the pattern and confidently cast on the number of stitches required for your size. Once the project is finished you happily put it on only to discover that it is bigger or smaller than you expected.
Sounds familiar? Well, you are not alone. Almost every knitter can share a horror story of a project size gone wrong. This issue may happen to any project, but it is especially painful when it happens to sweaters and cardigans – projects that take longer to knit.
The common advice in these situations is to make a bigger swatch, block it nicely and be extra careful as we count the stitches and rows to determine the gauge.
While this advice is very good, it is not enough in most cases. Why? Because we are humans, and our knitting tension depends on our state of mind, often even on our mood.
When we knit a swatch, we focus on making that swatch and we are not completely relaxed. When we work on the project, we loosen up, especially when we knit while watching a movie or having a pleasant conversation with friends and family.
That’s why no matter how big our swatch is, the gauge of the swatch is often slightly different than the gauge of the project. This difference is not evident when the project is small, but it snowballs in projects with many stitches, like sweaters and cardigans.
So we need something else in addition to making a swatch – a super simple method that I call a “control check”. It helps us to avoid unpleasant size-related surprises and is so obvious that it often gets overlooked.
If you’d like to learn it from a video tutorial:
Let’s take a Facile sweater that I’m currently making as an example.
Even though I designed this sweater myself, I still made a swatch before knitting the sweater again. It’s been four years since the pattern was released, and it is very possible that my knitting tension changed during that time. Remember, we are all human beings
I blocked the swatch, measured it and counted the number of stitches and rows to find the gauge.
The gauge was close to the one stated in the pattern, so I cast on stitches for my size and started knitting the back of the sweater according to the pattern instructions.
Here comes the most important part.
Once the piece measured around 12cm / 5″ I stopped to do the “control check”.
The first step is to lay the fabric flat spreading the stitches so that the fabric is not jammed. but at the same time, is not too stretched.
Because I use a long circular needle, I was able to lay the fabric flat simply by moving all stitches to the needle cord.
If the needles you use are too small to spread all stitches without jamming the fabric, transfer them to a piece of scrap yarn, a blocking wire or a piece of thick fishing line. Believe me, it is well worth the extra fifteen minutes you will spend to transfer the stitches.
To get an even clearer picture, block the piece, but even without blocking, you will see whether you are on the right track or not.
Then take a measuring tape or a long ruler and measure the width of the fabric at the middle of the piece. Not at the cast-on edge and not right under the open stitches, but somewhere in between.
Compare the measurement you get to the width measurement provided in the pattern schematics.
If the measurements are very close, smile and continue to work on the project.
If the measurements are slightly off, it is time to decide whether you are ok with a potential slight difference in the width of the project, or you would prefer the width to be exactly like the width in the pattern schematics.
If you choose the first option, smile and continue to work on the project.
If you don’t want to take a chance that your project could be a bit wider or narrower when it is finished, block the piece if you haven’t already, and then measure it again.
Blocking often fixes small variations in size, and if the width of your work-in-progress improves after blocking, then well, smile and continue to work on the project
Keep in mind though, that when it is time to measure the length of the project (before you do armhole shaping, start to make a neckline, shape shoulders or bind off stitches), it is better to block the fabric to adjust the width to the measurements in the schematics.
Knitted fabric is stretchy, but it does not stretch indefinitely. When we stretch it to adjust the width, it invariably affects the length.
If the width of the fabric on your needles is very different from the measurement in the pattern schematics, estimate how many more or less stitches you need to get the right width, write that number down and unravel the piece.
Yes, it is painful to unravel any part of our work, but it is not nearly as painful as unravelling the whole project, so cheer up – it is a small sacrifice for the greater good.
Before you cast on stitches again, you have to make another decision – either to change the size of the needles and go through the “swatching – blocking – measuring the gauge” process again, or to follow pattern instructions for a bigger / smaller size.
Because now you know how many stitches you need to get the perfect width, look for a size that calls for that or a close number of stitches to cast on. From now on, follow instructions for that size when you make anything width-wise – shape armholes, necklines or shoulders, but follow the measurements for your original size when it comes to the length of the piece.
So, what happened to my sweater? The width was a bit off, but because this sweater has a fairly loose fit, I don’t think this slight difference will affect the look of the finished project in any major way. I simply continued to work on the project accepting the fact that my finished sweater will be a bit skinnier.
Because I tried to describe every possible outcome, this method might seem complicated. In reality, once you understand the logic, it takes fifteen to twenty minutes to do this “control check”, and it saves you from the unpleasant surprises you might get when the project is finished.
If you make a project that consists of several pieces (like a seamed sweater or cardigan), there is no need to make this additional check with every part of the project unless you can tell that your knitting gauge, for some reason, changed drastically while you were making each piece. Or, when you put the project on a back burner and resume working on it after a long period of time.
In most cases, one “control check” will do. For example, when knitting a sweater, it is enough to use this method once, when you make the back of a sweater (that is usually the first part of the sweater that we make). Once you confirm that the size is correct, continue to work on the project knowing that it won’t be too big or too small.
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This and 41 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #6.