Your Swatch is More than *JUST* About Gauge.

Your swatch is your playground. It’s a place to tootle around with yarn, needles, and a pattern to see if you like what’s happening. 

We talk a LOT about the importance of swatching, mostly as it pertains to gauge. The short version: if your project is meant to fit a body (things like sweaters, hats, mittens, socks), your best bet is to make a swatch to be sure that you’re achieving the gauge that the pattern was designed for. (To read more about gauge, check out one of our most popular blog posts here!)

But swatching isn’t just about gauge. 

It’s also about pairing yarn and needles to achieve a fabric that you like that's well-suited to the pattern. Some yarns just might not be a good match for the design, or not a good match for how YOU want the finished item to look or feel. 

Your swatch is also a place to explore your yarn and stitch pattern. Do you enjoy knitting with fingering weight cotton on US size 2 needles? Will you enjoy it for an entire adult-sized sweater? Do you like seed stitch enough to make a whole sweater out of it? 

Your swatch is a playground where you get to collect some very important data. It’s not a big investment of time in the grand scheme of things, and your investment now will pay off in your satisfaction with the finished item later.

Spotlight on Local Goat Sarah.

If you’ve been following The Goat’s Facebook and Instagram feeds, you might recognize Sarah as a Local Goat and knitter who’s been featured on Finished Object Friday a few times. One thing we appreciate about Sarah is that she’s an experienced knitter who customizes every pattern she knits to meet her high standards of craftsmanship as well as to achieve her perfect fit.

Sarah might not like the look or feel of a particular seam or finished edge, so she’ll figure out a different way. Ripping back an intricately-cabled sleeve? No problem! Creating a different, more structured turtleneck than the design indicated? Yes she can and she will! 

Sarah recently brought in a gauge swatch that really tells a story. 

Sarah’s Swatchtastic Exploration.
Sarah had several skeins of Atlas by MDK in a limited edition colorway called Fire Opal. She chose the Schemer Slipover by Apella Knits as a simple yet elegant design to showcase this very special yarn. 

So Sarah set to swatching.

She brought in her epic, 14” swatch — with annotations! — to document the stitch patterns and needles she tried along the way. She began with that Fire Opal all on its own at the lower edge — but didn’t love the striping. Next Sarah tried some basketweave to see if that might work to create an interruption to the stripey effect. Nope… still not quite right. 

Sarah tried adding other contrast colors (green, an icy blue, then teal, back to icy blue), tested out a mosaic stitch pattern, then corrugated ribbing. She explored the ways that needle size really made a difference in both the feel of the fabric and how the stitches could “breathe” — starting with a US 7 and ultimately deciding on a US 9. Sarah achieved the look she wanted with a 1x1 alternating colorwork pattern, with that gorgeous icy blue to set the stage for the Fire Opal to really sparkle.

Brava Sarah! Your work paid off and your finished Schemer Slipover is gorgeous! (Link to Sarah’s Ravelry project page is here.) Thank you for sharing your process with us!

Do you have a swatch story to tell? We’d love to feature yours. Email iris@cashmeregoatyarn.com.