This is the third part in a series of posts on designing and self-publishing a crochet garment pattern. I hope to get these posts out pretty regularly, but am not making a strict schedule for myself so I can give each post the time and dedication it needs to get all the information I want out, without feeling rushed.

Today I want to talk about the importance of swatch-making, and how to use swatches to calculate your stitch and row counts and starting measurements, as well as how to estimate yardage.

When designing crocheted garments to create multi-size patterns, it is absolutely important to make a swatch. Having a swatch will save you lots of time and headaches down the road, and make your design process easier overall. It also gives you a quick way to test hook sizes and stitches without making and having to unravel a whole garment each time. Typically you will make a swatch in your main garment stitch or stitch pattern, and any other large blocks of stitching that will be used. For example, My Beverly Boxy Top uses plain rows of double crochet for the main body, and moss stitch/lemon peel stitch for the sleeves, so I made a swatch for each of those.

Swatches are typically around 4 inches squared, but might be bigger depending on the complexity of stitches or stitch patterns that need to be swatched – cables, for example, might warrant a bigger swatch.

BLOCKING SWATCH

Before you being measuring your swatch, YOU MUST BLOCK YOUR SWATCH. It’s important to take measurements from a washed, blocked, and dried swatch to accurately size the garment, as the yarn will “bloom” and often stretch out during washing and drying. Some yarns may react a bit differently, but again, that’s why it’s important to block, so that you can see how the yarn you’ve chosen for your design will behave and can take this into account when designing.

See the picture above – the crocheted fabric on the left is unblocked, and the crocheted fabric on the right is blocked. You can see how the structure of the stitches has changed and “stretched” to reveal a more lace-y texture.

To block your swatch, wet and wash it with yarn detergent, or a gentle detergent safe for the particular yarn, then stretch and pin into shape on a blocking mat or corkboard and allow to dry.

CALCULATING STARTING STITCH AND ROW COUNTS

Once your swatch has been washed and blocked, it’s time to measure. To measure your swatch, lay it flat and count how many rows are in a 4 inch space, then how many stitches across are in a 4 inch space. A square gauge ruler, like the one from Twig & Horn shown above (not affiliated) is helpful but not absolutely necessary.

We’ll use these measurements along with a sizing guide, whether it be your own or these standard sizes from the Craft Yarn Council here, to calculate how many stitches and rows you’ll need for your design.

Let’s use the swatch above as an example. There are 10 stitches per 4 inches and 10 rows per 4 inches. You then divide these numbers by 4 to find out the amount of stitches and rows per 1 inch, which would be 2,5 stitches per 1 inch and 2.5 rows per one inch.

Now let’s look at our standard body measurements. If you wanted to make an oversized duster with 18 inches positive ease (see Part 2 for a refresher on ease) in a size medium, you’d take the starting bust size of 38 inches, add 18 inches to equal 50 inches total. Divide this number by 2 to find the width of the back panel of the duster and you’ll have 25 inches.

The duster length for all sizes is 42 inches.

And here comes the fun part. Since this duster is a fairly simple shape with no increasing or decreasing for shaping, the back panel is essentially a large rectangle. We can now use our stitch and row count measurements from our swatch to calculate the starting stitch and row count for our back panel. For our starting stitch count we’ll multiply our stitches per inch by 25 inches (the width of our back panel). So 2.5 x 25 = 50 stitches. For our row count we’ll multiply our rows per inch by 42 inches (the length of our duster). So 2.5 x 42 = 105 rows.

Depending on the stitch pattern used, you may have to adjust the numbers a bit – for example, if the stitch pattern used must be an even number and your calculations land on an odd number of stitches, you can choose to round up or down to accommodate. 

CALCULATING YARDAGE ESTIMATE

While you may not know how much yarn you’ll wind up using for your first garment draft, it can be helpful to get a starting estimation during the swatching step of designing. Just add an extra row to your swatch when making it, then carefully unravel and measure the length of yarn used in 1 inch’s amount of stitches. This can seem finicky if that 1 inch stitch count includes a fraction, but don’t worry, the length doesn’t have to be exact, just as close as possible.

You’ll want to pull the length of yarn fairly taught beside a measuring tape or ruler, but not too taught (just follow the yarns natural stretch). Here you can see we have about 10 inches of length in our 1 inch stitch count. Take this number and multiply it by the amount or rows in our 1 inch row count. So, 10 x 2.5 = 25 inches. You can then take this number and multiply it by the full amount of square inches in the completed garment measurements, then divide by 36 to find your yardage estimate. Many people also add a small percentage to their yardage estimation to err on the side of caution. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below!

In Part 4 I’ll talk about more complicated shaping and how to calculate increases and decreases.