We have many customers who come in and say I want to knit this pattern but don’t know what yarn to use.  Of course we are always more then willing to help, but we want to be able to educate as well so you can continually improve in your craft.

Matching up gauge between a yarn and a pattern is very important to get a good fit and help set you on the best foot forward to finishing a garment or object you’ll love.  Gauge is simply a measurement of the number of stitches and rows per inch of knitting. We need to understand how many stitches or rows per inch so we can understand how large or small our finished object will be.  An inch or two difference in the breast of a sweater or across the shoulder can really make a difference in how your project will look and wear when complete.

So what do you need to know when you’re looking at a skein of yarn?

You might see something like the below image on the tag such as this one from Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Alpaca

Or you might see something like this as on the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

These two things look quite different but they tell us basically the same information.  The first one tells us that this Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted knits up at 4 stitches per inch, recommending a size 9 needle, pretty straight forward right?  The second tag contains a typical series of charts and symbols you’ll see on many yarn labels, which is quite simple once you know what you’re looking at.  You can see the two little needles on the left tell you that the recommended needle size is a U.S. size 8 or European size 5mm.  The chart on the right tells us that this yarn knits up at 18 stitches and 24 rows over a 4 inch swatch.  Meaning if you picked up size 8 needles and knit up a square about 4 inches by 4 inches you should have 18 stitches across and 24 rows long.  When you see this type of chart they are always referring to a 4 inch swatch.  So how does this translate into stitches per inch? Simple math 18 divided by 4 gives us 4.5 stitches per inch.

Ok so now you can match up the gauge in your pattern to the gauge on the yarn and walk out of the store.  Next step is that seemingly “skip-able” step of knitting up a swatch to make sure you indeed get the recommended gauge.  Just like each yarn is unique with it’s own qualities so are each of our stitches — some of us knit up more loosely or tighter than the other.

Let’s take  a closer look so we can really see what is going on.

Why does it matter?

Ok so what happens if you’re knitting this Blue Sky Worsted and you actually get 4.5 stitches per inch rather than the recommended 4 stitches per inch?  You’ll need to adjust your needle size. Why does this make such a difference? Half of a stitch doesn’t sound like that much.  Well let’s do a little math here (don’t get intimidated, we’ll keep it simple).

For instance if your pattern asks you to cast on 160 stitches.  At 4 stitches per inch you’ll end up with at 40 inch piece, but if you’re getting 4.5 stitches per inch you’ll end up with approximately a 35 inch finished piece, which is indeed a big difference.

One more thing:  You may have noticed that I’ve not talked at all about rows.  I don’t want to diminish the importance of rows too much, but if the yarn row gauge is a bit different than that called for the in the pattern, you can always make your project a bit longer or shorter by knitting a row or two more or less.  But it’s much harder to adjust a pattern for stitch gauge, so focus your attention there.

As always if you have questions, ask us!