cthulhueatingnoodles - Tumblr blog

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Art by Albeniz Rodriguez

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3d printed start gate

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The Glorious 25th of May.

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Smol Scale

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Scissor Wizard and Paper Wizard

It’s probably fine to leave them alone together.

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(I will boop everyone who reblogs this post, for the record 💖)

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sure what's the worst that could happen

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tumblr just gave everyone a cardboard tube and said go wild

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You can choose *One* of these mildly non-human traits to have.

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Okay, I've made enough "blease knit gauge swatches. Swatchless projects killedy family" posts. This post is an informational post a out gauge swatches. It will mainly be written in knitting terms because that is my main craft but it applies to crochet too. Even if you're an experienced crafter, you might learn something from this post. I talk about different reasons to make a swatch and some reasons a swatch might lie to you.

What is gauge?

Gauge is the size of your stitches, ie how wide and tall they are. It can be affected by the way you hold the yarn, your tension, and your needle/hook size. In knitting the style you knit can affect this, with the tendency being that English style is usually, but not always, tighter than continental. When I went from knitting English style to knitting Norwegian style, my gauge drastically changed to be much looser.

What is a gauge swatch?

A gauge swatch is a small piece of work that you use to measure your stitches per inch and rows per inch gauge. "Standard" gauge swatches are 4in/10cm squares, but often you'll see different sizes, especially for lace patterns that have you test knitting a certain chart or stitch

Why do we make gauge swatches?

We make gauge swatches to check if our gauge is the same as the pattern designer's gauge. Because you want your gauge to be the same as the pattern designer's so you know your size XL sweater will actually be size XL or your six foot in diameter shawl will actually be six feet across. Or that your airy and beautiful lace will actually be airy and beautiful and not too dense or too loose.

We also might swatch if we are substituting yarns. For example, a blocked lace swatch of wool will have different dimensions than a blocked lace swatch of pure silk because silk is less stretchy than wool. So if you are substituting fibers, you want to know that you'll like the finished item and might swatch a bit of the pattern before starting in earnest so you don't waste your time making something you'll be dissatisfied with.

There's also some differences between yarns of the same fiber and same weight. Some lace weight yarn is categorized as lace weight while being 600 yds per 100g, and some lace weight yarn is 800 yds or 1000 yds per 100g. So you should knit a swatch when substituting yarn even if they are the same fiber and weight if they are different yardage per gram ratios.

Do I always need to make a gauge swatch?

I talk a lot about the importance of gauge swatches but the honest answer is no, you do not always need to make a gauge swatch. If you are making something that doesn't require a certain size or airiness of pattern, like a bag or a simple scarf, you don't need to do a gauge swatch.

How do I make a gauge swatch?

Most patterns have a simple gauge listed, such as 22 stitches by 18 rows is 4in/10cm square in stockinette. However, some patterns have an "in pattern" gauge swatch or a separate pattern/chart for their swatch. So you cast on however many stitches (I often cast on a few more than the swatch calls for, but you don't have to), and knit that many rows in whatever pattern is specifed. If it's stockinette, knit stockinette. If it's "in pattern," locate the repeating part of the pattern and knit the designated amount of rows. If there is a separate pattern/chart for the swatch, knit as directed. Bind off. Don't measure on the needle, it will lie to you.

Then, you want to treat the swatch how you'll treat the finished object. If you're not going to block the finished object, measure it as is. But if you're going to block the finished object (and most things you should tbh blocking hides so many sins), you get the swatch wet, pin it out to shape, and then leave it to dry.

THEN! And nobody talks about this step for some reason and it's been the reason swatches lied to me in the past. Unpin it and let it rest. Different people give different time amounts for this resting. I'd let it rest at least three hours but some people recommend up to a week. The reason for this resting period is that many yarns, especially wool and other animal fibers, have elasticity to them. They'll rebound back a bit. Cotton and linen will have less rebound than things like wool. I'm not 100% sure where acrylic falls on that scale since I hate the texture of most acrylics.

OK I made and blocked the swatch and let it rest, what do I do now?

Now you measure! Does your stitches/rows ratio match up with the pattern designer's? Compare your gauge to the listed gauge. If it is different, you need to adjust needle/hook sizes. If your swatch is larger than the given measurements, your gauge is too loose and you need to go down one (or several) needle/hook sizes. If your swatch is smaller, your gauge is too tight and you need to go up one (or more) needle/hook sizes. At this point you can say "it's probably just one size up/down" and start your project, or you can repeat the entire swatch process. If unsure, repeat.

That's cool, can we see an example?

Sure! Here are two swatches I have pinned out.

I didn't follow my own advice about swatching and just started the Sapphira Lace Shawl on the recommended size 4 needles, but I got all the way through the first repeat of the body chart and then frogged the whole thing because my gauge was so loose you couldn't even see the pattern.

The Sapphira Lace Shawl has a separate pattern just for the gauge swatch and says "gauge is not important, swatch in lace pattern and use comfortable needle size to achieve airy lace that is not too holey." Too holey means that the stitches and yarn overs are so loose you cannot properly make out the pattern at all. That's what happened when I used size 4 needles.

The swatches you see here were knitted on size 2 (top) and 3 (bottom) needles. I knitted the bottom swatch first but was unsure if I liked the result so I went down another needle size and knitted a second swatch.

You'll notice the size 2 swatch is smaller and it's easier to make out the design. The stitches are smaller and denser, so the places where decreases and plain knit stitches are grouped together are easier to see. Versus the size 3 swatch where the stitches are looser and it's a bit harder to make out the design, though not impossible. On size four needled my stitches were so loose you couldn't really make out the design at all. With these swatches pinned out, I personally like the size 2 swatch better. However! That may change once I let the swatches rest for a while!

This yarn is an alpaca/silk mix. Alpaca is known for stretching out and not holding its shape. It's not ideal for lace. Silk is very good at holding its shape, but not very stretchy. I'm hoping together they make an okay yarn for lace because separately neither is my preference for lace. It was what I had on hand that was dyeable. Alpaca has some elasticity so it will spring back once I unpin it and let it rest. At that point, I may like the size 3 swatch better. I won't know until I get there.

I'll try to remember to post pictures of the rested swatches tomorrow to show if there's any difference. I might work up another swatch on size 4 needles to show what "too holey" looks like but that's more of a "how to knit lace" educational swatch than a "how to knit swatches" educational swatch so I might not bother.

That's it, that's the post. I'm sure my knitting mutuals will have comments and things to add so check the notes.

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I personally know there are multiple types of editing but I've never seen anyone explain it in a way that actually made me understand what the types of editing actually were (yeah cool that you say {}editing is different from []editing but *how*). So if you wanna explain, feel free to.

Your handy-dandy guide to different types of editing

disclaimer: writers, you can literally edit however works for you. these distinction can be useful to your process, or just if you're looking to hire an editor. Not all editors make distinctions in this way; there are various ways of dividing. But no matter what vocabulary you use, it's best practice to start with broad, big-picture stuff and move towards narrower issues. Some editors do all levels of editing, while some specialize.

Developmental Editing (Is it a good story?)

Developmental editing has to do with the content. For a novel, that means working on the bones of the story. The plot. The pacing. The characters. Do their motivations make sense? Can the reader understand why things are happening? Does the story drag in places, or seem to brush past important elements? Do all of the subplots get resolved? etc. etc. (At this stage an editor is mostly going to be offering suggestions, pointing out issues, and throwing out potential solutions. Beta readers can also be very helpful at this stage to get a reader's perspective on the story beats and characters.)

Line Editing (is it well written?)

Sometimes called substantive editing, line editing is zooming in a little bit more to focus on scenes, paragraphs and sentences. Once we've decided that a scene is going to stay, lets look at the mechanics of how it plays out. Does the scene start to early or too late? Does the writing style communicate the emotions we want the reader to feel? Does the dialogue match the characters' voices? do any of the sentences sound awkward or ugly? Is the movement being bogged down by too much purple prose anywhere, or is there not enough detail? (This can get pretty subjective, so it's important that the writer and the editor are on the same page with taste, style goals, etc.)

Copy Editing (is is correct?)

Copy editing is all about the details. Think grammar and punctuation. Do the sentences make sense? are they grammatically correct? Is the dialogue punctuated correctly? Any misspellings? Should this be hyphenated? Should this be capitalized? Should we use a numeral, or write out the number? etc etc. A significant part of copy editing is matching everything to a style manual (like Chicago or AP) a house style guide (individualized preferences from a publisher, for example), and a project's own internal style sheet (are the character's names spelled the same every time? if we used "leaped" in chapter 4, we shouldn't use "leapt" in chapter 7) Copy editing is still subjective, but less so than the earlier levels, so a copyeditor will be more likely to just go in and make a bunch of (tracked!) changes without consulting the author for everything.

Bonus: Proofreading (did the copyeditor catch everything? are there typos? formatting issues? have any errors been introduced?)

Lots of people say editing when they really mean proofreading. Proofreading is the absolute last thing to get done. It's the one last pass just before something is published. It's important, but as you can see, there's a whole lot more to editing than just checking for typos.

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You guys are so mean