Gauge

What’s the worst that can happen?

Let me tell you….
Check your gauge!

I didn’t check mine and here are the results.

excuse the top. I got frustrated with the looseness and towards the end I kinda gave up.

The hat pattern is called the  Sandoval Hat by Robyn Devine my second hat I’ve ever knit and at the time I didn’t know about gauge. The pattern calls for a size 9 needle and that was the size I used. I think I made that hat the first week I started knitting and so to me I figured that if I followed the pattern it would come out perfect. Never mind gauge, never mind tension, never mind yarn! I didn’t know about all of that yet!

So I finished the hat and as you can see it’s HUGE. If I opened it up it might be able to land a human. My boyfriend has a big head and even it was too big for his head. I didn’t know if it was my knitting or if It was because I switched yarns in the middle of the work so the next time I went to my LYS I asked what I could do better. Know what they said?

Check your gauge.

Okay! You’d think I would have learned my lesson, right? Wrong!

Say hi to Dell!

I decided to knit my mom the Gallatin Scarf by Kris Basta and it called for size 10.5 needles but I only had size 10.  I struggled casting on and increasing and I switched to a size 9 thinking maybe that would help. I don’t think my needle size had anything to do with my starting struggles, but I eventually got the hang of it on the size 9 and didn’t want to switch back and have to go through the whole process again, so I continued.

Well, the scarf was considerably smaller than it was supposed to be, and my mom is gifted in the chest area. I still haven’t given her the scarf yet but i’m interested to see how it looks on her.

So I have learned a valuable lesson when it comes to knitting.

Check your gauge.

I now do small swatches so that I can see how my yarn works with the pattern and if I need to go a size up or down with my needles, and I think in the long run the patience saves me from a lot of frustration and disappointment.

I think now that i’ve knitted more and I know about gauge I would like try both the Sandoval hat and Gallatin scarf. I think this time around I think I can make them look a bit more like they’re supposed to.