You may ask yourself what is a crochet gauge swatch when you see it on written patterns and many times it makes you feel as if you are not an experienced crocheter because you have never done a crochet gauge swatch before.
How does a crochet gauge swatch look?
Most of the crochet gauge swatch is a small square of 4″ x 4″ but sometimes you will see crochet gauge watch in a different form depending on the design.
What a crochet gauge swatch does?
It helps you make the best fitting crochet garment when following the pattern. And it also helps the designer to calculate the sizing in their pattern.
Have you ever spent many hours crocheting a dress and ended up too big or too small?
Well, that will not happen again if you do a gauge swatch before starting your project. Each of us has a different tension when crocheting. A gauge swatch helps you get the sizing right and it is so important especially if you are crocheting a garment.
How does it work?
For example, you want to make a crop top, and the gauge swatch of this pattern is 20hdc x 20rows = 4″ x 4″ with hook 4mm You did the gauge swatch but it turns out that your swatch measures 23hdc x 22rows for 4″ x 4″ in this case you will try again but this time you may use hook 4.5mm to get the gauge right.
But if your gauge swatch has fewer stitches, you then need to downsize the hook to get more stitches to match with the gauge. You can also use a totally different yarn weight as long as your gauge met with the pattern. It’s cool right!
A crochet gauge swatch plays a big role in designing!
As a Crochet designer, I use a gauge swatch to help to grade the pattern for different sizes. How do I do that? Well, let’s have a look again at the number above. 20hdc = 4″, so 5hdc = 1″
A small-size crop top measures 34″ at the fullest part of the breast meaning I need to make 170hdc in order to have it match with 34″ according to the gauge swatch above. So if I want to make a medium-size which measures 36″ at the fullest part of the breast, I then need to make 180hdc in order to have it match with 36″
Learning a gauge watch will help you design your own crochet pattern, either a garment or accessories. And if you want to make a passive income and not have to trade your time with money. Selling crochet patterns, it’s a way to make a sustainable income.
Learn more about how to make money with crochet here!
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Until next time!
Maya xoxo
Yarns & crochet hook featured in this post:
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