My solution to Gauge problems

I always find a pattern and have every intention to bring it with when buying my yarn to make sure I pick something out that will obtain the right gauge. However that never happens or if I do bring it with I end up falling in love with a different yarn that must simply be used for this project. Do I fret, go home to get the pattern, say no to the yarn that is calling my name? No way!! If I'm going to take the trouble to make something hand made I'm going to do it my way (and I'm not going to waste my time or gas to get the pattern b/c more than likely I won't follow the yarn requirements anyway). Here is how I still end up with a garment that fits.

PROBLEMS WITH THE PATTERN GAUGE

The hoodie pattern I'm working on now calls for a gauge of 18 stitches and 24 rows per 4 inches and the yarn that I picked out got me 21 stitches and 27 rows per 4 inches. Now I was using No. 6 needles instead of No. 7 needles in the pattern because I want this sweater to be warm and tightly knit. No. 7 needles would not have gotten me the right gauge anyway so what was the point in using them? Now a solution might have been to double the yarn, but that would have meant that I had to go and buy more of it. Or I could have chosen another yarn, but I had already bought this one (which is totally awesome and I will speak more on latter). I did not what to do any of this so I didn't. To make the pattern work I simply changed my stitch count. I always do this. ALWAYS.

CHANGES TO MAKE MY GAUGE WORK

Unfortunately the method still requires a swatch, however it only requires ONE. I sometimes skip the swatch step and hope that I get the same gauge that is on the yarn label but that only works if you are going to use the same needle size as on the label. Now the simplest way to get my new stitch count is to do the math and see if another size in the pattern will now result in the size you want. For example in the pattern I'm using the largest size if knitted on my new gauge would result in a size close to the middle size. Here's my math:

32" chest in the pattern calls for 72 stitches for the front

72 stitches / 18 stitches per 4 inches * 4" = 16" (which is 1/2 of 32)

72 stitches / 21 stitches per 4 inches * 4" = 13.7" (which would result in a 27.5" chest)

If 27.5" is what you are looking for, say your nephew has (or will have when you finish) a 24" chest then this will work perfectly. Just follow the stitch count and directions for the large size.

Now my nephew had a 25" chest when I measured him last time I babysat. However that was over a month ago and I fear he has grown, also I'm not giving this to him for several more months until his birthday so I fear that he will grow even more. Now I want this hoodie to be at least 2" lose and I'm going to figure a 2" growth (which might be way to much but I don't really know exactly how fast children grow, just know it is fast) gets me to a 29" chest. I'm now going to use the size increments from the pattern to test out new stitch counts.

The cast on stitch count for the front is 56(64, 72) which takes 8 stitch increments. So I will now see how large 80 stitches will be.

80 stitches / 21 stitches per 4 inches * 4" = 15.25" (which would result in a 30.5" chest)

Now this is a bit on the large side of what I was looking for but he will always grow. I was not willing to chance the 27.5" chest and have him grow out of it before I gave it to him. So this is what I cast on. Now because this pattern has even increments for all of the stitch counts I no longer needed to do much math. I just figured out the increment and got the next one (ok this is still allot of math but adding and subtracting not multiplication and division, ie you might not need a calculator)

Sometimes you run into problems where this will not work, for example using my new total stitch count of 80 I will need to decrease on both sides 22 times (44 stitch decrease) and result with 34 stitches left on the needles. I would not, 80-44=36 not 34. This means that on my last purl row I decreased too (since the decreasing was only on the knitting side). I would suggest reading through the whole pattern first and figuring out your new stitch counts before you start to solve any problems that might arise like this one. Sometimes the solution that makes the most sense would have been to only cast on 78 stitches (which I probably would have done if I had taken my own advice but I didn't) The row count calculations can be figured out on your way, I do the math in my head while knitting and I always (so far) have enough time to finish, knitting several inches takes much more time than even multiplying and dividing.