Yarn weight

I was wondering… If I make a baby dress out of 4 yarn but the pattern indicates to use 3- will it look like the garment is chunky? I honestly don’t know enough about pattern construction (or yarn construction for that matter) to actually know how the result will differ.

Worsted weight (#4) is going to make the garment larger when used in a pattern calling for DK (#3). Depending on the needle size that you use the garment could be stiffer or thicker.
This is also going to be dependent on the particular yarn you use. The numbering system covers a range of yarn weights and various companies classify yarns differently. Swatching for gauge and fabric is the best way to tell.

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Thanks! I will swatch- usually the projects I make don’t require swatching, but I have learned that clothing does! I appreciate your knowledge and help :slight_smile:

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Depending what size you wanted, and what choices of sizes there are in the pattern, it may be possible to work in a larger needle (if needed to make the fabric nice and not too stiff with the tighter gauge) but to work to a smaller pattern size for the stitch count. I’ve done this with a sweater where I preferred the softer fabric produced on bigger needles, I worked out from my swatch how many stitches it would take to acheive the chest width in the size I wanted then looked in the pattern to see if there was a similar number of stitches in that area for a smaller size. It does take a bit of calculating and I needed to work stitch counts for the smaller size but length measurements in the larger size (sketching out a schematic helped and labelling parts with measurements and stitch counts nd row counts). It worked out though.
This easy(ish) way to modify a pattern is only possible if you want a size that is bigger than the smallest size though, otherwise every part requires recalculating.

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