How to Knit a Helpful Swatch – Part 3 Swatching in the Round

August 17, 2020| LindyBeir| 0 Comment | 8:00 am

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It took me a good bit of time to decide if I thought it was necessary to knit swatches in the round if I was knitting an item in the round rather than flat. The practice of knitting sweaters flat in pieces that are sewn together versus knitting sweaters in the round is, in itself, a whole topic with proponents for each practice. I may take this topic up at a later time, but for now I will focus on knitting a swatch in the round.

First, there are many knitters and designers who only use gauge swatches knit flat to determine their stitch gauge even if the pattern is knit in the round, and second, most patterns do not state how the gauge swatch was done. All you see in the pattern is the gauge statement.

Do you know if your gauge is the same if you knit in the round as when you knit flat? There’s a good chance that it’s not. As I’ve said before, gauge is a measure of how an individual knitter knits.

Think about how you knit when you knit in the round. One of the biggest differences is that you only knit on the right side of the fabric when you knit in the round. Using stockinette stitch as an example: When you knit flat, you knit one row (right side) and then turn your work and purl the next (wrong side). When you knit in the round, you join the stitches to make a circle and then knit every round.

Now, if you are one of the many knitters whose purls are looser than their knits, there is going to be a difference in tension between something you knit flat and something you knit in the round. Plus, you may modify your technique for knitting when knitting in round from when you knit flat. If you use straight needles when knitting flat, then switch to using circular needles or double point needles (dpns) to knit circular – your gauge may be significantly different. This is why I have come to the conclusion that it is good practice to swatch in the round when planning a project that will be knit in the round.

So how does one knit a swatch in the round? The first method is to cast on a enough stitches to give you a knitted tube that will be at least 4+ inches when laid flat. This could be the start of a sock or a hat. (Elizabeth Zimmerman said that “a hat makes a good swatch”.) Once you have a tube knitted of sufficient length for a good measurement, you treat this swatch the same way you would if your swatch that was knitted flat – i.e. measure, block, re-measure.

The second method goes by a couple of different names: “Speed Swatch” and “Circular Swatch with Floats” are two that I have found in my research. In this method, you use a circular needle and cast on the same number of stitches you would if you were knitting flat. But instead of knitting a row and then turning the swatch and knitting back to the end of the row, you slide your stitches to the needle on the opposite end and strand the working yarn loosely across the back and start knitting the next row. You keep repeating this process until you have a long enough swatch for good measurements. See pictures below:

Front of Swatch ITR — Knit with US 8 and Us 7 Needles

Once you have the swatch completed, you treat it the same way as any swatch – measure unblocked, block, re-measure. A note about measuring this swatch: Some sources suggest that it is easier to measure this swatch after cutting the loose strands so that the swatch will lay flat. Others simply say to measure the swatch by laying it as flat as you can. Logically, you are not going to want to cut the strands if you plan to reuse the yarn in the swatch. I’ve tried both ways and did not find a significant difference in measurements. Here are pictures of the swatch above after I blocked it and cut the floats to take the measurements:

So if you plan to knit a sweater in the round, please do your swatch in the round.

If you would like to see a video on this technique, here are three helpful ones:

Nancy Wynn, “How to do a Circular Gauge – Speed Method”: https://youtu.be/1W9XYgd3s7I

HowToCast: “How to Knit a Circular Gauge Swatch”: https://youtu.be/E1z2pbRmddY

11 Gauge Swatch Secrets PLUS How to Swatch in the Round | Off Our Needles S3E1: https://youtu.be/tv7uy0HetrI

Part 1: Freeing Yourself from a Written Pattern or How to Use the Yarn of Your ChoicePart 1: Freeing Yourself from a Written Pattern or How to Use the Yarn of Your Choice

March 19, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comment| 8:00 am

In my last post, I discussed the issues related to trying to substitute one yarn for another and suggested at the end of my post that if you want to use a yarn of a different weight & gauge than what the pattern calls for – you can design your own custom sweater using the pattern as a guide.
Today, I will focus on the first of two approaches for doing just that. WARNING – you must be prepared to take measurements, do a proper gauge swatch and get out your calculator. Yes, we will be doing some math…

Approach #1 – Use EZ’s Percentage System.

Elizabeth Zimmerman published her “unvented” percentage system for designing sweaters in the Knitting Workshop and gave us many examples of how to use it in her other books. EZ was always someone who dealt with knitting in a pragmatic fashion and basically cut through all the fluff and gave clear explanations of basic concepts. I encourage you to read all of her books – but if you want the complete explanation of her percentage system — Knitting Workshop is the source.

I am describing EZ’s Percentage System for two basic sweater designs – the yoke sweater and the Raglan sleeve sweater. Both are knitted in the round. You need to take some basic body measurements:

Width around the chest (Chest Measurement) [CM] The Chest Measurement is the “Key Measurement” (100%) and the starting point.
Body length to Underarm (Underarm Measurement)
Sleeve length to Underarm (Sleeve Length)
You must know your stitch gauge or Stitches per Inch [SPI]

The math follows:
CM X SPI = # stitches needed for the body of the sweater.

For a Yoke Sweater the basic percentages of the above are:
Body = 100%
Wrist = 20%
Upper Arm = 33%
Underarm = 8%
Circumference of Shoulders = 133%
Neck = 40%

For a Raglan-Sleeve Style Sweater the basic percentages are:
Body = 100%
Wrist = 20%
Upper Arm = 33%
Neck = 40%

To calculate – multiply the total number of body stitches by the percentage.

I think you get the idea. If you want to try using EZ’s percentage system, I recommend you either borrow EZ’s Knitting Workshop from your library or a friend or purchase it.

Here’s a link that will take you to Amazon.com: Knitting Workshop

I have also created an Excel Spreadsheet that will make the calculations for you. You can download it here: EPS_Calculator Spreadsheet.

Next post, I will outline another approach to sweater design.

WIP: Pi Shawl — Hibernating Since 2008…WIP: Pi Shawl — Hibernating Since 2008…

July 16, 2010| Lindy| 0 Comments| 2:13 pm

In the Knitter’s Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmerman suggests doing a Pi Shawl during the month of July as a perfect knitting project to take along with you on your summer travels. Well, I started a Pi Shawl following her instructions in the Knitter’s Almanac in July of 2008. Umm, yeah. July 2008. I took this project with me during that summer on various trips, including a trip to Spain in September. But then, for some reason I don’t fully remember, I set it aside — and left it sitting until July 2010.

As you can see from the above photo, I had made quite a bit of progress on this shawl. In fact, I had made it all the way to the last set of increases, with 576 stitches on the needles. If you are not familiar with the concept of the Pi Shawl — it is simply this: you start out with a small number of stitches (9 in this case) and double the number of stitches every so many rows. The number of rows between increases grows by 3’s or thereabouts and you end up with a circular shawl made up of a whole lot of stitches. (EZ writes that you can keep increasing as long as you wish — but she stops at 576 as it seems to be enough. I think I agree.)

So — after I figured out where I had left off, I started knitting away on those 576 stitches using the lace patterns given in the Knitter’s Almanac. When I started this shawl, my plan was to knit it per EZ’s instructions. Knitting the lace patterns required knitting 42 rounds and I decided to knit an additional 2 rounds after that. Here’s what it looks like at this point:

Here a two additional views. The first is looking down at the center of the shawl with the circular needle underneath and the other is looking down with the circular needles on top.

It looks like a big lacey bag at this point. And it is really difficult to tell exactly how large this shawl actually is. I’m estimating that it is somewhere around 60″ in diameter, but I really won’t know until I get it off the needles and get it blocked.

Now, getting the shawl off the needles is going to take some time. This is because I am knitting on a lace border and using up the edge stitches as I go. I am using the lace border pattern on page 82 of the Knitter’s Almanac. Now, this was a bit tricky to get started — because it doesn’t really tell you how to incorporate knitting off stitches when you knit the lace pattern. EZ does describe the basic process earlier in the chapter — but the specific directions are not given with the lace border pattern itself.

It took me a little while to figure things out — and since I don’t want to have an issue with dropping any of those 576 stitches, I started by putting in a lifeline. From this point forward, I am using the right needle of my circular needle and a dpn to knit the border, so I put a point protector on the left needle to prevent stitches from sliding off and cast on 11 stitches for the border:

The lace border pattern consists of 4 rows, and you K2Tog each time you knit back toward the shawl’s edge stitches, incorporating 1 edge stitch into the border. This means you use up 2 stitches every 4 rows of border. (Yeah…it’s gonna take awhile.) Here’s the start of the border after 20 rows:

I like the border… Only 566 stitches to go. I hope to finish this before the end of July. I will post pictures of the finished shawl when I get it blocked.

Here’s a link to Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac

WIP: The EZ Green SweaterWIP: The EZ Green Sweater

June 26, 2011| LindyBeir| 0 Comment| 4:43 pm

I have been knitting recreated Green Sweater from the pattern recreated by Sunday Holm from the original sweater knitted by Elizabeth Zimmerman. (Schoolhouse Press Pattern #13, Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Green Sweater). This sweater pattern has a charming history and you can read the story here: Channelling Elizabeth.

Now, I am a “sometimes knitter” when it comes to sweaters. I start them and I knit on them “sometimes” — for some reason, I tend to knit on my sweater projects in between other projects. This means that I take a long time to finish a sweater project once it’s started. So, I started this project over a year ago — and I knitted a portion of the lower body and then I set this project aside.

A couple of months ago, I took this project up again and knit on it quite a bit. It’s a very intriguing pattern. The sweater is knit in the round using steeks. Yes, I said steeks. Steeks are that technique that many of us knitters avoid — but one Elizabeth Z embraced and used extensively. I decided to do this sweater specifically because of the steeks — I figured it was time for me to master the use of steeks. In this pattern, there are four steeks. The first one is up the center front (the sweater is a cardigan), then there is a steek for each armhole/sleeve and the fourth one is the neckline. You basically cast-on extra stitches, in this case I cast on five for each steek, and knit them up with the sweater. Then you cut them apart in the middle. Yep — I said you cut them apart. That’s what’s scary about steeks.

Here are some pictures of this sweater in progress:

This is the center front, showing the center 5 steek stitches and the beginning of the armholes for the sleeves.

This shows the sweater with all the steeks knitted, before they have been cut.

I used the crocheted method for fastening the steek stitches on each side.

In these two pictures, you can see the steeks, all cut and awaiting further work.

I am now working on the first sleeve. I am about two-thirds done with it. The sleeve has a unique design, and I really like how it is knitting up. I’ll post more pictures of this sweater once I have the sleeves and the neckline knitted.

Some details: I am using Frog Tree 100% Merino Yarn in Colorway 909 Teal and using circular needles, size US 8 (5.0 mm).