How to measure your knitting

When you are knitting dishcloths, blankets or jumpers using a knitting pattern, you start by reading and understanding the pattern. If you are a beginner, it might be helpful to familiarize yourself with the different terms and abbreviations that you often come across in knitting patterns.

You will always be advised to make a knitting swatch. For this, you will need to know how to measure your knitting.

Measuring your knitting - Here's how you do it

When you are knitting swatch, you cast on stitches with the yarn that comes with your pattern. A knitting swatch is intended to help you assess the knitting tension. Some knitting needs to tight while other knitting needs to be loose.

It is important that you spend the time preparing your knitting by measuring it. This way you avoid ending up in the annoying situation where you run out of yarn before finishing your project, or your knitted jumper ends up too small.

Once you have tried making a swatch, you will know all the details on how to measure your knitting.

It is best to use a ruler for measuring. A tape measure may be more inaccurate as it is flexible. Be sure to cast on a few more stitches than what your pattern recommends. Then measure 10cm of your knitting and count how many stitches you have on this 10cm piece.

What to do if your knitting has the wrong measurements

It often happens that you have either too many or too few stitches than what is stated in your pattern. If you are knitting too tightly, try using thicker knitting needles and then redo the swatch. If you have too few stitches on the 10cm, you are knitting too loosely. You then need to choose a new set of knitting needles that are either 1-2 numbers smaller.

Always remember to knit a new swatch when you change knitting needles.