Adapting yarn and needle sizes

Hi all,

Still a newbie, I have made a horrible mistake.

I ordered yarn for Xmas projects through KnitPicks. Becuase of a delivery glitch, it’s taken almost a month to get to me. This was kind of troubling becuase I’m a pretty slow knitter and have lots of projects in mind. I made a horrible mistake, how do I fix it?

My scarf pattern calls for 16 sts/4" on size 11 needles. The yarn I bought is 16 sts/4" but I forgot to notice the needle recommendation, and that is based on a size 6 needle. Oh no!

As soon as I opened the package I knew there was not nearly enough yarn, but I had the right amount of yardage so I was very confused. How do I rectify this?

On one hand, I think I could order more yarn and hope it gets here on time, but I’m thinking that the pattern (even row = K3P1, and odd rows = K all) will come out tinsey weensey and will look silly and will make a very narrow scarf. Would it be better if I doubled up on the yarn and used bigger needles? If so, what size needles would I use?

I know that somewhere on this site there is a needle/yarn conversion link, but I am not able to access it (firewall), so that’s no help for me.

If you can help, I’d be ever so grateful.

As my baby would say, “tinks” in advance.

Try doubling the yarn and using size 10 or 10.5 needles. You may want to try a swatch with it to get a fabric you like the feel and look of.

The clogs we’ve all been making use doubled worsted weight yarn and size 13 needles, but are a relatively “open” fabric before felting, so size 10.5 give or take a size should be about right for a scarf.

Best of luck, and let us know how it’s going.

Happy Knitting :XX: :XX:

Mary