How to do a Gauge Swatch

A gauge swatch is something you should really do before you knit anything that you want to make sure will be the size that the pattern says it is. Because of this, when I first started knitting, I was determined never to make anything other than scarves and mittens that you could sort of check and make adjustments to as you went. I was really intimidated by the idea of a gauge swatch because I didn't know how to do one properly and I didn't want to waste my time and materials on knitting a square that would take all day.

Eventually I broke and figured I understood the basic idea, and would do gauge swatches. Unfortunately I was doing them completely wrong. I would knit the number of stitches and rows that the pattern suggested, and hope that it would come out to be 4 inches. I've since learned how to do a gauge swatch in a craftsy class that I took a couple of years ago by Faina Goberstein called "Sizing Knitwear Patterns"  I know that I'm probably not the only one who didn't know how to do a gauge swatch or who might be intimidated by them and I just wanted to make a post sort of explaining how to make a reliable gauge swatch that will help you make sure your finished garments will fit you once you're done knitting them.

Firstly, cast on enough stitches so that you will for sure have between 4 to 6 inches of knitting, and then cast on an additional few stitches for an outer boarder. I will usually do between 4 and 8 stitches on each side. 

Next you want to knit the bottom border for your swatch in something like garter stitch or ribbing so your swatch doesn't curl at the bottom. When your border is about 4 rows long you can start working in the pattern that you are swatching for. For this example I'm swatching in stockinette stitch. The first and last 2-4 stitches are going to be your side boarders, so you wanna work your first and last 2-4 stitches in something that doesn't curl like garter stitch, or seed stitch in the case of this example.

Once you have about 4 rows of your stitch pattern work you want to start sewing in guide lines to make measuring at the end easier. Take a waste yarn in a contrasting color that is about 5 or 6 times the width of your swatch and using a yarn needle and thread half of the waste yarn into a stitch that is 4 or 5 stitches from the border and leave the other half of the waste yarn as a tail. The waste yarn isn't going to be knit, it's just going to be woven into the knitting and will be able to move freely. 

You now want to thread the waste yarn along the other stitches on the left hand needle to mark off the total number of stitches you'l be counting. You want to consistently leave the same number of stitches between the marked stitches to make counting easier in the end. I like to mark every 5th stitch.

You want to stop marking off stitches about 4 or 5 stitches before the border stitches start.

Next knit across the row, careful not to knit the waste yarn into the stitches, and then because I marked off every 5th stitch, I also want to mark every 5th row, so I'm going to knit 3 more rows.

My next row to work is now the 5th row. Because I want to mark this row I'm going to take that long tail we left at the start to mark of the stitch on the left hand needle that's in line with the first stitch we marked off.  Then I'm going to take the end of the yarn that's where we stopped marking off stitches at the end of the work and I'm going to use that to make the stitch on the left hand needle that is directly above the last stitch we marked off.

Keep marking off every 5th row as you knit your gauge swatch so that you are marking off a square in the middle of your swatch.

Once you have knit between 4-6 inches of rows, and you want to finish your square, work to the next '5th' row and mark it off as you have been. Now before you work that row, take the waist yarn from the beginning of the work and mark off every 5th stitch the way that you did at the start of the swatch. Both ends of the waist yarn should now be coming out the same stitch and should form the corner of your marked off square.  

Now you want to wash and block your swatch the way that you will be washing and blocking your finished piece. I let mine soak in lukewarm water for half on hour, and then laid in on a towel to dry.

Your Gauge Swatch is Now Complete!! 

On to the Measuring.

Instead of counting your stitches within a 4 inch section on your knitting, you just have to measure from one guide line to the other. You can count your marked stitches to see how many stitches are in that section. I have 5 marked stitches, 5x5=25, so there are 25 stitches in that section. I measured across at a few different places to make sure it was accurate and got 5.5 inches. If I have 25 stitches, divided by 5.5 inches, then I have 4.55 stitches per inch which I can now use to see if my gauge is correct for the pattern I wanted to use with these needles and this yarn.

 Likewise I can see that I have 5 marked rows, so I have 25 rows in 4 inches. 25 divided by 4 is 6.25 rows per inch.

I know that was a pretty wordy and picture heavy post but I hope that it was helpful to any of you who may have been having trouble with gauge swatches. Thanks for reading!