Making a Gauge Swatch

Toni Lipe: Hi! I am Toni Lipe with Toni's Design Studio. Right now, we are going to talk about making a gauge swatch. At the beginning of each of your knitting projects, you need to do a gauge swatch to make sure that your yarn and the needles that you are using and the pattern stitch that you are using will correspond with what the pattern calls for. If not you are going to end up with a sweater that is too large or way too small. A lot of people don't like to do gauge swatches because they want to get right into the knitting and I have to admit, I am one of those, but doing a gauge swatch is very very important to each project that you do. For instance, if you are doing a sweater and the pattern calls for a gauge of five stitches per inch on stockinette knit stitches. What you would need to do is to multiply that times four and cast on 20 stitches and then knit in your stockinette stitch for four inches. So as you are knitting, you will take your tape measure and you will measure from the bottom of your needle down to four inches. So what you are trying to do is to get a 4x4 inch square of knitting with five stitches per inch. After you have completed knitting your swatch, you slide your work off of the needles and you lay it down flat, top side up and then you need to measure your swatch. You check to see if it is indeed 4x4 inches square. If it is you are doing fine. You can go ahead and proceed on your knitting project. If however, your swatch is five or six inches wide by four inches long or two inches wide by four inches long, there is a problem with your gauge. Next, we are going to talk about getting the correct gauge and solving problems with an incorrect gauge.