My gauge swatches

#1

First of all, please excuse the bad photography. I just charged my battery, but it was showing low battery on the camera anyway. I need a new camera.

With both of these swatches, I used KnitPicks Essential sock yarn. I used KP Harmony DPN in size 3. The only difference is the top swatch was English knitting, and the bottom was Continental.

English gauge: 8 or 9 stitches per inch. (I can’t tell - bad eyesight - need new glasses.)
Continental gauge: 6 stitches per inch.

I love Continental, but I’m so sloppy with it! See the holes? Those are NOT dropped stitches. I think those are from my tension being way too loose. I’m constantly picking up the thread again and re-wrapping it around my finger to get the tension again. The yarn slips up my pinkie finger as I knit, making my tension too loose. If I wrap twice, then i’m too tight and I can’t pull the yarn through my fingers at all. When I knit Continental, my stitches are so loose they just glide right off the needle. When I knit English, I often have to fight with the yarn.

I would like to stick with Continental, but I’m a much neater knitter with English.

Any comments, suggestions, etc. would be appreciated.

#2

I think most continental knitters tend to be looser and have to go down needle sizes. You can keep practicing, use leftover yarn and different needles just to practice and see if your tension tightens up.

#3

im the opposite. I normally knit continental and my tension is normally on the tight side, not a lot but often requiring slightly larger needles. When i try and knit English style it is very loose and sloppy.

This is mainly a result of me being less competent with English style and finding it difficult to keep a ood tension on the working yarn.

I think i were to practice it more then i would have less of discreprancy between the two.

#4

I think i were to practice it more then i would have less of discreprancy between the two.

Yes I think that goes for everyone; when you practice the less familiar style, you get better at keeping an even tension and there is not so much difference between the two after a while.

#5

I only knit conentinal - I do hold my yarn a bit differently than shown by most conentinal instructions…

I don’t wrap the yarn around my pinkie - I wrap it around my index finger… it goes between my pinkie and ring finger, over the back of my hand and around my index finger twice… I then use my index finger to wrap the yarn around the needed to make the stitch - I do still have to re-thread my yarn around my hand from time to time, but I find it is easier to control the tension with my index finger.

I also knit loose and have to go down several needle sizes to get the gauge I need.

Keep trying and good luck.

#6

I think in one of the videos here on KH, Amy does a stranded colorwork tutorial holding one color in the Continental style and one in the English style. It’s a bit fiddly at first, but you get used to it. If you’ve got time, you could practice this and see if you can iron out your gauge issues.

P.S. gauge is a tricky thing, don’t let it get you down :wink:

#7

P.P.S. holes between stitches are not always a problem. (Think of lace, it’s all holes! :D)

It’s more important to have even tension (i.e. that your gauge remains constant throughout a piece), than to not have holes between stitches. Those gaps could be an important part of the airy fabric you’re trying to make.

In every knitted item you make, the thickness of the yarn and the gauge you knit it at both influence the fabric you end up with. Thus, both of your swatches above are acceptable fabrics, it depends on what you’re trying to make: a super tight fabric could stop bullets and won’t drape well, and a really loose one will let in the breeze.

So really, just practice until you find a style you feel comfortable with and then adjust the needle/yarn size to get the appropriate gauge!