Tension square issues - HELP!

How-to Questions
1

I am trying to get my tension square correct, but have come up against a problem that my knitting books don’t mention.

My square SHOULD be 20 st x 28 Rows to 10 cm’s on 4.5mm needles
I ACTUALLY knit 21.5 st’s x 28 Rows to 10 cm’s on 4.5mm needles

If I increase my needle size to make my stitch number correct, this will make my row incorrect, what should I do.

I have let my square settle before measuring, but always find my knitting it too ‘long’ and invariably need to miss rows out of patterns.

Am I doing something wrong that is simple to correct?

Thanks for looking

Christine

2

I don’t think there’s really a fix…if you change to get the stitch gauge, your row gauge may then be off. Perhaps someone else will have a suggestion.

That being said, since most patterns use inches (or centimetres) for length rather than number of rows, the row gauge becomes less important. Of course there ARE patterns which go by number of rows, so who’s to say?? Hope someone else has the answer you’re looking for, and that I could use as well when this happens!

3

Thanks for your reply, I think you are right in that there is no fix. I will just have to make sure the stitch is right and adjust the rows accordingly.

Best wishes

Christine

4

that is normally the case. It is generally more important that your stitch gauge is more accurate than your row gauge to get the fit for things.

5

You change needle size and CO more sts than is called for in 10cms. So CO about 24 sts and don’t include the edge sts in your measure, they curl under and aren’t the same size as the middle ones. You’re getting too many sts in 10cm so you need to try 5mm needles; don’t worry about the row gauge changing, it’s the stitch gauge you want to match.