Knitting Rules! by Stephanie Pearl–McPhee Page A

in the sleeves and discovered they were large enough to hold a litter of kittens.
    If your project is knit circularly, you can knit a circular swatch without casting on enough to go all the way around a circular needle. Cast on the swatch stitches, knit them (or purl them, or whatever your pattern dictates), and then, without turning, slide back your work to the beginning, reach the yarn across the back loosely, and start at the right-hand side again. Repeat this until you have a good-sized swatch.
    When you’ve knit a few inches (at least two or three) cast off (if you’re a good knitter) or simply take the knittingoff the needles (if you’re lazy and your yarn is not the unraveling kind). It is important both to knit a few inches and to take the knitting off the needles to measure gauge. Both the cast-on edge and the needle can distort your stitches as much as several shots of vodka, so your aim is to knit enough that you can measure a stretch of knitting that’s uninfluenced by the edge and the needle.
    Because swatches are intended to be samples of the shape of things to come, attention to detail is a vital part of the swatching phase. You’re trying to match the conditions that the project you knit will be knit under. Think of swatching as a scientific experiment and try to duplicate the circumstances of the project.
    When you have a sample chunk of knitting knit in the style and manner of your project-to-be, you’re ready for the next phase of swatch management: washing. When the swatch is finished, treat it exactly as you’ll treat the finished item. If it’s for a lace shawl, wash and block it, and if it’s for a sweater, wash, pat it into shape the way you will the sweater, and leave it to dry.
    This step is the one most often missed by those swatch knitters who go on to unhappy endings. Surprising things can happen to yarn when it hits water, and the astute and cautious knitter washes her swatch exactly the way that the garment or item will be washed when the project is done. You can make it dry faster by putting a fan nearby to blow on it.
    When the swatch is dry, unpin it (if it was pinned down) and find one of those elusive tape measures andsome pins. You are now ready to attack
stitch gauge
. Starting at least ½ inch in from an edge, insert a pin to mark your starting place. Then measure 4 inches (or 10 cm) from that spot and mark the ending point with a pin. Now, count, with all the honesty you can muster, how many stitches are between the two marks. Then do it again. Then give the swatch a shake, and do it again. The number of stitches between your markers is the stitch gauge.
    A gauge square is a misnomer. There’s no reason you can’t do gauge triangles or stars if you want (and now that I think of it, gauge stars could make pretty cool Christmas decorations). Imagine coming up to Christmas season and having a swatch from every project you’d knit all year to tie on to packages or hang on the tree. Sure, your family would think the knitting thing had gone way too far, and maybe they’d call the cookie truck to take you away for a little “rest,” but … doesn’t a little rest sound good?

    Check the pattern with some care. Somewhere on it will be a bit about tension or gauge. Read this part to make sure you aren’t making assumptions. Nine knitting patterns out of 10 will have you measure gauge over 4 inches (or 10 cm) Then, out of the blue, you come across a pattern that calls for something else. Take a minute to register that the pattern writer wants 20 stitches to 4 inches, and not 20 stitches to 2 inches. Not catching this can make you think unkind thoughts about yourself and others.
    If you’re lucky, your gauge will match the pattern’s. If you’re unlucky, it won’t and you’ll have to try again.
    If you have FEWER stitches to the inch than the pattern calls for, you need to make the stitches SMALLER so more