Swatching!

Hi everyone!  I hope you were all able to gather your materials for the knitalong.  I spent the morning trying to take pictures and videos of myself making a slipknot, casting on, and knitting and purling rows for my swatch for those of you who are just learning.  I'm not very good at working cameras, or technology in general, so I have made an executive decision to let it go, and point you to some excellent videos that have already been made.  For one, I want to pat myself on the back for letting it go, because I have a hard time with that.  Two, these videos are much much nicer than anything I could have made, because they have sound as well.  Mine didn't, which actually made them kind of weird to watch.  I'm used to awkward silences, but not everyone is! :)

First, I want to encourage everyone who will be doing this project along with me.  Some parts will seem hard, and you may be learning a lot of new things in this project.  I'm going to try to go pretty slowly, so that everyone who wants to get it can, and I want you to ask me if you have any questions at all.  I'm also available to help in person, if you're around Presque Isle.  I am happy to do anything I can to help anyone who needs it, so don't hesitate to ask.  The main thing to remember is to go at your own pace.  Mine is slow, and that's a good pace for learning.  You will get less frustrated, I promise!

The website I'm going to link to is called Knitting Help.  I have watched countless videos on this website to help me learn how to do new things, or remember how to do things that I've done a lot, which happens more often than not.  This is an excellent resource.  The Lion Brand Studio has a Youtube channel as well, which has a pretty large number of videos for knitters and crocheters.  Click the following link to get to Knitting Help:
www.knittinghelp.com
And click this link to get to the Lion Brand Youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LionBrandYarn

Those links will take you to the homepage, and I'll give you a couple of specific links for things we'll need to learn.

Okay!  So today we're going to do a gauge swatch!  I have to confess to you that this will be the first project that I've swatched correctly (assuming I swatched correctly, of course).  I hate swatching, because I think that swatching time is wasting time that I could be spending actually knitting the project!  However, I have had lots of tears due to a lack of swatching, so we're going to do it for this one and get everyone into the habit.

A note for the following videos: the method I use for knitting is called the "English method," and I would find that easier for beginners.  Also, I hold the yarn in my right hand between my thumb and forefinger, rather than wrapping it around several fingers like the woman in the video does.  If you are just learning how to knit from these videos, they suggest the "Continental method," which is supposed to be better for tension, and possibly quicker.  It will take you longer to get comfortable with it, in my opinion, but it might be better in the long run.  The continental method is also suggested for left-handed knitters who have a hard time getting their right hand to do anything.

First to start our swatch, you need to make a cast on row.  You can use whatever cast on method you like; I'm going to use the long-tail cast on.  Here is a link for a long-tail cast on video:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/cast-on
I read somewhere that you should make the tail three times the length of your piece.  Since the swatch is going to be around 4 inches, you should leave a 12 inch tail.

To find out what we are supposed to be doing for our swatch, we look at the part of the pattern that says, "Gauge."  Nobody has the pattern yet, because I don't know how to put files on the sidebar yet.  If you really would like to have the pattern right now, email me at alexandyj@gmail.com and I'll email it back to you.  The pattern for the baby hat calls for a gauge of 19 stitches=4" in stockinette stitch. You can do this swatch for the adult hat too, since if you bought a worsted weight yarn, chances are good that the needle size specified was an 8 or 9.  What you'll need to do is cast on 19 stitches, first of all.  The long tail cast on creates a knit row as well as casting on, so you'll end up having to purl all the stitches when you actually begin the swatch after the cast on row.  So, after you've cast on your 19 stitches, turn the work and purl every stitch.  Here's a video for purling:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/purl-stitch
Make sure that when you are purling, you are holding your working yarn IN FRONT of the work, rather than IN BACK, like you would for knitting.  I didn't think of this when doing ribbing for the first time, and couldn't figure out why it looked so wild.  Purl every stitch on this first row.

Then, you will turn the work again.  You're going to knit this row.  Here's a video for knit stitch:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knit-stitch
Knit every stitch on the second row.  If you look at the swatch, you can see bumps on one side, and v's on the other.

 

The swatch on the left has the bumps, and the swatch on the right has v's, if you can see them in this blurry picture.  The side with the bumps is considered the wrong side, and when you're working this side you will purl every stitch.  The side with the v's is considered the right side, and when you're working this side you will knit every stitch.  This will create a fabric that looks different on both sides, called stockinette stitch.  If you knit every stitch in every row, right or wrong side, you would have a fabric with all bumps.  This is called garter stitch.  We are going to do our swatch in stockinette stitch, so knit the right side and purl the wrong side.

You should have to do about 25 rows in order to get to four inches, counting the first purl row that you do as row 1.  You can count how many rows you've done by picking one of the columns of v's, and counting each v in the column.

If you are looking at this picture, and you count one column starting with the first full knit stitch (I left out the half one that got cut off at the bottom), there are ten rows.  So get to the point where you've done around 25 rows.  Your swatch will be curly, that's okay.  Stockinette stitch curls, so as a general rule needs to have some sort of border around it or some incorporation of purl stitches on the knit side to keep it from curling.  Garter stitch does not curl at all, making it great for dishcloths, scarves, and other things that are supposed to be flat.

  

When your swatch is done, you can pin it to an ironing board, or another similar surface.  Try as hard as you can not to stretch the swatch, since this will give you incorrect gauge.  I laid the swatch on my ironing board, and smoothed it out gently in whatever place I was pinning it.  I then put down my tape measure and placed a pin at the 1 inch mark, and at the 2 inch mark.  I lined up the 1 inch mark with the side of one column of v's first.  Then, I counted from the pin on the left to the pin on the right to see how many v's were in between them.  I ended up getting 4.5 stitches per inch on this swatch, which means that my total swatch width is a little over 4 inches, and 18 stitches would have been better than 19.  Sometimes half a stitch off doesn't make that much difference, like in a baby hat.  However, if you are making a sweater that is, say, supposed to be 50 inches around, and the gauge calls for 5 stitches per inch and you get 4.5, for every inch that the sweater is supposed to be, you'll actually be close to an eight of an inch off.  If you cast on the number of stitches called for in the pattern anyway, ignoring your gauge, your sweater would be a little more than 6 inches too small.  That sounds really confusing, but hopefully it's understandable.

When measuring my gauge from the left side to the right side, my suspicions that I'm off a little bit were confirmed.  My swatch is almost 4.25 inches in width, rather than 4 inches.  Like I said, I'm not too worried about this, because I would rather have the hat be too big, than for me to go down a needle size or cast on less stitches and have it be too small.  If you are way off on your swatch, that's okay.  I had to go up two needle sizes to get this gauge from what the pattern called for, but I knew that ahead of time so didn't try to swatch with the needle size called for.  I'm going to knit the hat on these needles.

There are a couple of different things you can do with your swatch as well.  Some people cast the swatch off the needles (instructional videos here http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/casting-off) and keep it in a photo journal with pictures and information on the finished project, such as what yarn was used, who the project was for, etc.  I think this would be really cool to do, because I've already forgotten some of the projects I've done, and it would be fun to look back and see them.  Others will just keep the swatch around until the project is done, in case you need to refer back to it.  Some people wash their swatch exactly how they're planning to wash the finished project, if they are not sure how the yarn will react.  Some people, like myself, will unravel the swatch so the yarn can be used in the project.  I've also heard of people who keep swatches sewing them together into blankets for charity, using them as potholders, or some other creative use.

I feel like I'm forgetting to tell you a lot of important information.  If you would like to know more than I told you here, comment on the post and I'll get back to you.  This is my first time teaching, so I'm sure I'll make lots of mistakes and will need your help!  I'd also like to know if you are making this, who you are making it for, and whether or not this project will be a first for you, whether your first knitting project, your first time knitting in the round, or anything else.  I'm really looking forward to this knitalong, and I hope you are too!