Thursday, April 05, 2007

Gauge for Sahara

I've been swatching my yarn for Sahara in an attempt to match the gauge. How particular is everyone else about this? I'm using the gorgeous Handmaiden Great Big Sea pictured in an earlier post. It appears to swatch to 5 st. per inch or maybe 4.75--just a little off on size 6 needles. When I swatch it on 5's, it swatches to about 5.25 - 5.5 stitches per inch. The lengthwise count is a little off as well, though not much. I tend to think that this yarn with all the silk is going to stretch when knit up. I'm making the Small size --the one that says it fits a 33 inch bust. I actually measure 34 - 34.5 so I'm thinking that if I use the 6's and it's a little bigger than it should be it would still fit. The next larger size is for a 37 inch bust and that's just way too large. The next smaller size is for a 31 inch bust and that's way too small! Is the amount that it's "off" negligiable enough to be able to "fix" in the blocking stage or am I just being too anal? Thanks for any advice!

2 comments:

Susan said...

I'm not sure what Gauge you're trying to get. While the first page of the pattern states 18 sts = 4", on page 2 under "Gauge" it actually says 20 stitches = 4". Unplied silk that is going to be beaded was 22 sts = 4" unblocked and 20 stitches blocked. I'm working on Rusted Root first, but it sounds like you have guage already.

SD's blog

Hattie said...

I think as well with the silk, I would go with the gauge that is a tiny bit smaller. I usually don't worry too much if it's just a tiny bit off. Most items stretch a tiny bit anyway. Plus even doing gauge swatches, I often knit smaller for some reason. I just double check my gauge on the actual item when I get a few rows in to make sure it doesn't change a whole lot.