Saturday, August 27, 2005

Worrying about gauge...

Right. After many attempts at getting gauge with the Kelso tweed yarn that I'd envisioned using for this sweater, I finally had to admit defeat. Thinking about it for a while I was not quite happy with my first choice anyway - the yarn is rather scratchy and might work better as a cardigan over some t-shirt... Instead I think I might use Lang's Fantomas Superwash, of which I happen to have a large quantity lying around (I had planned to use this for the Market Sweater in the Fall issue of Interweave, but as my copy STILL hasn't arrived I might as well work on something else instead!).

Now, the problem with this is that this is a lighter yarn, so there is no way I'm going to get gauge with it. I knitted up a swatch with 4mm circs, which seems to be a comfortable size needles for the yarn, and my gauge came to 3" x 3.5". Not quite the 4" that are required for the pattern...

What I thought I might do is change the pattern so that I can still use the yarn. Have any of you done this before? My calculation is this:

My gauge was 19 sts = 7.5cm (3"), so 79 sts = 31.5cm. This means that I need an additional 28.5 stitches to get to the 42cm width required in the pattern (if 19sts = 10cm). This means that I can more or less follow the pattern, using the 2nd largest size, but have to make sure that I measure the length of the sweater regularly so I don't end up with a crop-top.

Do you think this might work? How do the sleeves work on this sweater? Should I anticipate trouble when I get to that part?


And another question:
Right at the beginning of the pattern it says - Knit 5 rnds, then purl 1 rnd for hem turning round. Knit 10 rnds.
Does this mean that I knit, then turn it inside out for one row, then turn it back to knit the 10 rows or does it mean that after I have turned it I will keep on knitting on the wrong side?

1 Comments:

Blogger Iris said...

Thanks, that's a great help!

I'm looking forward to seeing your sweater! :)

Sat Aug 27, 10:45:00 AM PDT  

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