Better Sweaters: Making Fabric

Favorite sweaters are as much about the fabric we make as they are about the patterns we choose. Taking a little time to make sure you love your fabric means you’re more likely to love your sweater. You are worth it.

In this article, we’ll talk about knitting and crochet as creating fabric for a sweater. We’ll learn how to adjust a pattern to match the gauge of the fabric you make. And we’ll learn how to avoid swatching for a sweater.

Did You Say Avoid Swatching?!?

Here’s a very simple way to avoid swatching for a sweater. Call it knitting.

Swatching happens when your hands, needles/hooks, and a specific yarn work together for the first time. You cast on, knit or crochet a piece of fabric, and wash or block it. That fabric can be a small sample of sweater fabric, or it can be a sweater sized piece of fabric; the choice is yours.

But Swatches Lie

When we swatch, we often begin with as few stitches as we think we can get away with, work those stitches carefully and precisely, bind them off, and call it done. But is that how we make sweaters? Why would we expect that swatch to accurately represent the fabric of our sweaters?

Think about all the circumstances in which you knit or crochet. In front of the TV. On shaky public transit or in a car on bumpy roads. Waiting…anywhere. We knit and crochet in a variety of places while experiencing different levels of relaxation or stress. This affects our stitches. It’s no wonder our swatches lie.

We can reduce the lies by making the swatch the same way we’ll make the garment. This will make your swatch a better representation of the gauge, texture, and fabric of your finished sweater.

Size Matters

Sweaters are big pieces of fabric. The four-inch square indicated for gauge in your pattern represents a small section of what should be a larger piece of fabric. For a sweater, aim for a swatch that’s at least 6″ x 6″. Bigger is better, and longer is more important than wider. A big swatch will more closely approximate your sweater fabric than a little swatch will.

The two swatches in the image below were both knit by me.  I used the same yarn and the same needles for both swatches. But the gauge of the two swatches is not the same. Simply making one swatch larger than the other affected the gauge.

A large swatch also lets you evaluate how the finished sweater will behave at various stages.

Stages of Swatching for Gauge

The Gauge Game

What if your swatch doesn’t match the pattern gauge, but you really love the fabric you’ve made? You can either try making another swatch or you can use some simple math to adapt the pattern to the gauge of your fabric.

Here’s my quick and easy method for changing the gauge of a pattern:

Proceed with caution! This method may not work for all design elements, and may cause problems with stitch pattern repeats, but you can count on it for adapting basic shaping in the body and sleeves.

In Summary: Let the Fabric Lead the Way

Loving the fabric you make is an important part of making a sweater you love. If the fabric isn’t going to deliver the results you want, wouldn’t you rather find that out before you invest time and money in making the entire sweater? When you’ve found a fabric you can’t wait to live with, you’ll be well on your way to a new favorite sweater!

This is the fourth article in a series on Better Sweaters! Go back to Part 1 for tips on choosing sweaters that you’ll love to wear, check out Part 2 to learn about how to create a garment that’s “Size YOU” and get that great fit, head to Part 3 to learn all about ease in garment creation, and then move on to Part 4 for tips on swatching and designing from your fabric.

Originally published 8/26/2022. Updated 10/16/2023.

Kim McBrien Evans is a knitwear designer, teacher, author and indie hand dyer. Her knitwear designs are known for their ability to turn an abstract idea into a wearable reality while simultaneously fitting and complimenting a wide range of bodies.

Her yarn company, Indigodragonfly, is renowned for its vibrant colours, offbeat names, and ever expanding plan for world domination. Kim lives and works in the woods of Central Ontario, Canada.