Hi all, this post has turned out a bit long, so I’ve put helpful sub headings in to make it clearer what my questions are!
[B]Background:[/B]
I’ve been knitting since I was little but have never paid much attention to gauge until the last couple years when I started getting serious about knitting properly. I never learned about different wool types (4 ply, etc) because I tended to just pick one I liked and use my favourite needles and pray it worked out!
But now I’ve begun spinning and between all the different regional variations for names for yarn and imperial/metric measurements etc I am very confused!
I will be using my own homespun yarn so I will take a WPI measurement when its finished as I have no idea what “size” you’d call it.
[B]This is the pattern:[/B]
[B]Question 1:[/B] I want to knit a free pattern that has different sizes up to 24 months but I want to make it for a 4 yr old size. Should I try to double the pattern and hope that is big enough, or should I fork out the money to buy the bigger pattern?
[B]Question 2:[/B] I’ve just started to get my head around the gauge method taught on LBY’s website (measure 1 inch by 1 inch and count the total number of stitches) but I don’t get how to knit a gauge swatch for this: “29 stitches and 37 rows = 10 cm stocking stitch”
Do I knit 29 stitches (with a few extra either side) and do 37 rows in st st (again, a few extra) then measure the middle to see if its 10cm square?
What if its not? How do I adjust it, bigger needles if its too small, smaller needles if its too big or is that backwards?
Please bear with me if I am still confused, I’ll try to make sense of it!
(Wish we had worldwide standard measurements for everything sometimes!!!)