It's a Wrap

I hope you enjoyed the discussion about gauge in the In the Loop section of this newsletter. Having taught several knitting classes at various venues over the past six years, I am familiar with the sound of grumbling when I ask everyone to knit a gauge swatch.

One of the projects I teach is a knitted beaded bag, which demonstrates various ways to add beads to your knitting. A student asked me why we had to do a gauge swatch for a project that doesn't have to fit anyone. Although I would usually agree that gauge isn't quite as important when knitting accessories as it is when knitting a sweater, in this case, gauge was extremely important. If the gauge is too loose when knitting with beads, the beads will slide through the stitches to the back of the work, never to be seen from the outside.

During another class on knitting fingerless gloves with cables, I must have been particularly stressed out because I completely forgot to begin with the usual ritual of knitting the gauge swatch. Everyone just casted on with the size needle specified in my pattern, and we got going. Well, by the time we'd finished the cuff and moved on to the body of the mitt, I could see that several students were working on mitts that would fit an elephant. Realizing my error, I had to ask them to stop, back up and begin again, after doing a gauge swatch. Turns out that more than one of the students had noticed that I didn't ask them to do a gauge swatch and were secretly celebrating the fact. When will we ever learn?

Judith Durant
Editor of Creative Knitting newsletter

Judith Durant loves to knit and to write, and writing about knitting is the best. She has authored, co-authored and edited many books about knitting and beadwork, including Never Knit Your Man a Sweater, Knit One, Bead Too and the best-selling One-Skein Wonders series. She is currently co-authoring a technique book with Dorothy T. Ratigan titled Knitting Know-How: Techniques, Lessons and Projects for Every Knitter's Library, which will be published in July 2012.

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