What Is Knitting Gauge and How to Calculate It?

If you are fairly new to the world of knitting you may have already been slightly concerned by the concept of ‘gauge’ and the fact that everyone always tells you it's very important and you have to check it before starting. I know how you feel, when I first started knitting I was so slow, but so keen to get my hands on my finished pieces. I had no time for this “gauge swatch”, and as my bewildered friends have commented “so you knit a square, and then undo it again?” Yes, yes you do..

So let start with what the gauge actually is. The gauge refers to the number of stitches required to reach a certain length and width of fabric. The gauge is written as stitches and rows per 4”/10cm, the lower the number, the larger each individual stitch and the less stitches are required per cm. As you might expect the thicker the yarn the fewer stitches there will be per cm, however it’s not just the yarn itself but also the needle size and the tightness of your knitting style that affect the final gauge.

Ok so far so good, but why does it matter?

Let's take an extreme example, you’ve seen a pattern for a simple scarf you really want to knit, and you’ve got a ton of lovely chunky yarn in your stash. The pattern suggests a size 4mm needle, but your yarn says 6mm, you don't have a 4mm needle and you just really want that scarf like now! No big deal it’s just 2mm right? so you go ahead with your lovely chunky yarn and 6mm needles. A few rows in you start to think, wow this is a very wide scarf.. That’s ok it’ll be cosy.. Fast forward a few hours, days, weeks, you run out of yarn and your scarf well it's a bit short, you don't want to start again, you buy more yarn and eventually you end up with a rather large scarf-blanket. So by now you probably know where I’m going with this, but let’s do the maths anyway!

Typical 4mm gauge = 22 stitche