So over the last few weeks I’ve made these two tiny baby sweaters for some gorgeous humans.. Some people I adore will be welcoming small people in the next little while, and so I wanted to make a small stash of sweaters. I figured that any sweater that didn’t have a recipient could be sold off for charity in one of my Tiny Fundraiser Tuesday posts.
Now what’s a little odd is that I made them with new yarn. This is not a common process for me as over the last few years I have been steadily working through my scraps, and scrap baby sweaters have become the norm. But I’m starting to run low in dk/4ply scraps and even though I tried a few blends this time I couldn’t find one that worked.
And again - these are for some humans I care about and so I wanted that care to be reflected in the beauty of the little sweaters and so messy chaos sweaters weren’t what I was hoping for. Hence heading a little off my beaten track and purchasing yarn for the projects.
Because this is a rare event these days, this felt like an adventure. What to choose? What would work in homes where hand-washing woollens really isn’t a thing? And who has a nice creamy white in a dk that isn’t going to pill like a chaos-monster. I’m looking at you merino. And what feels delicious?
After a flying visit to a local yarn store I chose two very different yarns - and purchased two balls of each.
Yarn 1 (on the left) was 50g x 2 with 128m per ball. It was a 60 merino/40 possum worsted yarn. So all up 100g in 256m. Gauge was listed as 22stitches in 10cm. This is the more beige, natural colour yarn.
Yarn 2 (on the right) was 50g x 2 with 150m per ball. It was a 70 alpaca/30 cotton chain construction. So all up 100g in 300m. Gauge was not listed. This is the whiter yarn.
These yarns feel very different. Yarn 1 is more hardy, Yarn 2 is lighter and softer.
Anyway so then I sat down to do the knitting. And just for the fun of it, and a smidge of curiosity, I knitted the same pattern, in the same size, using the same needles.
Same pattern. Same size. Same needles!
But I got two very different results.
What is Gauge?
It is simply the measure of how many stitches fit in 10cm/4” of knitting.
How do you measure gauge?
I count and measure mine like this - by counting five rows of V’s and popping in a pin.
Why does it matter?
Because our gauge drastically impacts the width of the fabric we create - and therefore the size and shape of the garment we are making.
Yarn 1 gave me a gauge of 22 stitches per 10cm. Less stitches per 10cm gave me a bigger sweater.
Yarn 2 gave me a gauge of 25 stitches per 10cm. More stitches per 10cm gave me a smaller sweater.
As you can see from these photos Yarn 1 has given me a much smaller more delicate sweater. Which makes sense. The chain construction feels squishy and like it doesn’t have quite as much body. This is reflected in the longer yarn length (150m) per 50g.
The second little sweater made from Yarn 2 feels hardier. The fabric the needles created is thicker, more sturdy. The little sweater is not only bigger but the fabric is thicker and I suspect the sweater is warmer, more lush.
Was this an expected result. Yes. I knew that two very different yarns would give me two different results. How different was a little unexpected as I thought that the length wasn’t that different, and in using the same needles I kinda thought I would almost be able to get the same gauge. But no.
Instead what I got was a beautiful example of the difference our gauge can make.
What difference does gauge make?
Our gauge matters. So much.
Above is an example of what happens when gauge is a little out. Now it is fine and wearable but not quite what I was looking for.
In today’s instance, for these teeny tiny sweaters the difference of 22 -> 25 stitches is a difference of 3-4” in the body circumference - and means this is a different sweater for a different aged baby.
I know from personal experience that many of the sweaters I have made that aren’t big wins, are simply because my gauge is a little off. Because in a grown up sweater the influence of gauge is even more profound.
Say I make a sweater for me - normally I am looking for a chest width of around 38” - and the pattern specified a 22 stitches/10cm gauge. If I knitted it in the whitish yarn where I now know I am going to get a gauge of 25 stitches/10cm (so the same as the difference between the two tiny sweaters here) then I would end up with a sweater that was 33.5”. In other words a very very booby sweater. Which would be fine if that was the look I was going for, but not so much if it wasn’t.
The Details
This gorgeous little baby sweater pattern is the Arnica Sweater by Tete Beche. It has become a bit of a go-to baby pattern for me. And I love it all in one colour even when, as is the case below, I stuff up the little pattern by creating something a little odd. The first and last rounds of detail in this one are very different and I’m not sure what I did. You can see this more prominently from the back. I did however decide I liked it so play on.
Cause that is the beauty of making things. We get to shape the things we create. We get to decide what is beautiful. And we get to decide what is done.
And we get to work on and build our technical, physical, emotional and design skills over time such that we can make decisions about what materials will work with what patterns.
This little experiment has brought me such joy. Joy that it demonstrated so beautifully the difference gauge can make - and that I now have two beautiful but different baby sweaters ready for the small humans about to enter the world.
All about the love!
Felicia x
