My Lice Stitch swatch for the Galloway Cardigan finished drying, and I'm ready to measure for gauge. This post will take you through the process of measuring the swatch and calculating gauge.

First I start out by sewing a contrasting yarn into the borders of the swatch to use as measuring guides. One strand through the stitches at the top of the swatch:

One strand through the stitches at the bottom of the swatch.

One strand through the right side of a column of stitches running up the right side of the swatch.

One strand through the left side of the column of stitches running up the left side of the swatch:

Next I measured for stitch gauge. I put a ruler across the middle of the swatch lining the zero up against the left border and following a line of "lice" in a straight line. My ruler is only 5 inches, and my swatch is wider than 5 inches, so I just counted how many stitches I have in 5 inches.

I count 22 and 1/2 stitches in 5 inches. Here is a picture showing the individual stitches:

galloway lice measure 1 with stripes.jpg

So, here's how I calculate gauge. I want to figure out stitches per inch, so I divide the stitches I counted (22.5) by the inches I measured (5) and get 4.5 stitches per inch. The gauge stated in the pattern is 20 stitches per 4 inches. So I need to multiply my stitches per ONE inch by 4. I get 18 stitches per 4 inches (4.5 stitches per inch times 4). I knit this swatch with a size 7 needle. I am getting less stitches per inch than the pattern calls for. This means that my stitches are BIGGER that the pattern gauge. Since my stitches are bigger, I can fit LESS of them in 4 inches. I'm going to need to switch to a smaller needle, so that my stitches are SMALLER and I can fit MORE of them in 4 inches. I'm going to pull out the yarn in this swatch and knit another with a size 6 needle.

In any pattern, the stitch gauge determines how wide your piece will be, and you generally want to match stitch gauge to the pattern. The row gauge determines the length of your garment. If you don't meet the pattern row gauge, you can generally knit more or less rows in the pattern to have it come out to the length you want. I'll show you my row gauge measurement here and how I calculate it, but this gauge won't determine which needle size I use.

I count 27 rows in 4 inches, which is 6.75 rows per inch. The pattern calls for 28 rows per inch.

So, I'm off to re-swatch the lice pattern.