Blocking my Swirl swatches revealed something odd.
Going Green calls for 24 stitches per 4" using 3.75 mm needles. With the Mirasol Nuna swatch, using 3.75 mm needles gave me 22 stitches per 4". Going down to 3.5 mm needles for the String Theory Selku swatch got me a little closer: 23 stitches per 4". So it seems I need to try again with 3.25 mm needles.
What gives? If anything, my gauge is usually a little on the tight side, making it necessary to go up a needle size or two, not down. Then again, a quick search on Ravelry reveals that several other people needed to go down to 3.5 mm needles or smaller... okay, so maybe it’s not just me.
Tagged: swatching.
I'm knitting Sandra's "Plum Perfect" which is done on US 8s. I had to go down as well to get a swatch that I thought was close enough to match gauge. I also knit, if anything, on the tight side.
And now I need to follow your example with your shawl and go do some calculations to see if the yarn I have for that Swirl is going to be enough ...
» Sarah JS
Sarah, how are you going to pull off those calculations? The shawl is a nice rectangular thing that makes estimating easy. A Swirl? Not so much.
» JC
Excel comes to the rescue .. welt X is Y stitches around Z rows with 16 less stitches for the last round; welt X + 1 is (Y-16) stitches around with Z + 1 rows and then another "less 16 stitches" for the last round. (Of course, the Swirl I chose would have different row counts for the stockinette welts versus the reverse stockinette. Oh well.)
I just plain counted "stitches per each rown" for the "transition" welts (like the increases/decreases for the sleeves), but think I've come pretty close. Some 68,525 stitches in my size (2) for the Plum Perfect. Which means I'm 43% done -- and sure as shooting will run out yarn. So I've got another two skeins ordered. And yes, two skeins is total overkill -- but the yarn is good for baby items as well, so I won't mind the leftovers!
» Sarah JS
Yeesh! There’s no way I want to know how many stitches are in anything I want to knit. :-D
» JC
My knit group is in total agreement with you. If I were working this from the inner section out, I couldn't bear knowing. (There was the center-cast-on baby blanket that I wanted to be ~40 inches square. I was sick of it when it was just the size of a burp cloth. This bodes ill for my ever doing EZ's PI shawl.)
I'm not sure why this one doesn't bother me ... probably because you do just a couple of those first rows and you've knocked out 1,000+ stitches.
» Sarah JS