Tension and guage

#1

Hi,

I am new to this forum. I have been knitting off and on for years but have always had trouble with guage. Now that I have “retired” I have more time and patience and want to improve. I’m tired of knitting scarves.

If I knit with the needle size the yarn package recommends my swatch is way too big-- one half to three fourths of an inch in a four inch swatch. I just used size 7 needle when a 10 was called for, and it is still a quarter inch too big. My tension is nice and snug and my stitches are even.

I can’t believe I am that far off without doing something wrong. Do other stitches find that they have to go down 3 or even 4 needle sizes?

#2

Are you using the yarn recommended? Or at least yarn that is the same weight and gauge?

#3

Hiya lgl,
K, I’m gonna ask a very personal knitting question here. (lol)…
are you a picker or a thrower?

I knitted for years before meeting a lady from Frankfurt and I always had been knitting as a thrower. (english, yarn in right hand throwin over the needles in question).She was a picker, (continental, yarn in left hand, just like crochet, and the right hand needle used to “pick” the yarn through the stitches).

I saw that her gauge was ummmmm “bloody hell perfect”!!! And mine was, fat row, skinny row!!! I had just about given up on figuring out how to fix it and was thinking o hell, it just makes it more personalized, blah blah blah, ya know.

She took me under her wing and showed me the way of the continental, I had seen the light…(angel voices, bells, lights… ) I have been a picker ever since and my gauge is almost as perfect as hers (I still have some problems but not as bad as it was)’

Long story short here, you might want to try to switch your yarn feeding hand and see if that helps. It sure did me. I haven’t looked back since, except to do stranding n stuff. but other than that…

There are wonderful videos here under the “view videos” tab. Just look for the “continental knitting” video and see if that helps.

#4

Picking or throwing by itself may not make for looser or tighter gauge; I throw and my gauge is correct. As Jan said, you need to use yarn of a similar gauge as the pattern and the needles in the pattern, not what’s on the label. The label gauge is really there to show the yarn weight - 18 sts/4" on size 8 = worsted - and not so much which needles you should use.

#5

yep!

#6

:aww: :zombie: Hmmm, I was just goin on personal experience there ladies. Not necessarily any gospel truths of any sort. Just what I did to correct MY lopsided gauge issues. And, yes, using the correct needle for the yarn is of utmost importance.

The previous post has been deleted.

#7

Sure, for an individual, changing how they hold or carry the yarn is going to make a different in tension. But it’s not a universal thing that switching from conti to english or vice versa will make a difference.