What to do when pattern asks for different gauge?

How-to Questions
1

OK, here is my situation:

I fell in love love love with a Thick N Thin yarn from JoAnn (AND it was on sale, is that true love or what?). I took it home and decided this was THE yarn for my dream capelet.

Now I’ve found THE pattern for my dream capelet, but the yarn it asks for doesn’t match my gorgeous thick n thin

Sooooo: Can I substitute? Are there adjustments I can make to make it work? Different needles maybe? Should I just ignore the gauge and knit it with my :heart: yarn and see what happens? Or am I doomed?

Pattern asks for: 9 stitches by 15 rows on size 15 needles
Yarn gauge is: 8 stitches by 11 rows on size 19 needles

Thankyous many to anyone who helps me!!

2

That’s not too far off stitch-wise! You should do a swatch with the needles called for on the label of the yarn, maybe a size smaller to get 9 st per inch.
The only real problem I see is if you have those sizes of needles available to you for swatching. You’ll end up using only one pair of them on the project.

As for the row gauge, that’s not as important since you can knit according to length rather than number of rows in most cases.

3

And if it REALLY doesn’t work out just by changing needle size, you can alter the pattern to a different gauge using this technique.