Knitting needles effect gauge

KnittingAngel

I seen this, and was surprised how different needle can affectyou gauge. I thought i would share. I hope I have not put this in the wrongplace being that it is more informative than teaching you a new skill. If ihave put this in the wrong place please except my apologies

Needles  made from adifferent material,  can affect bothstitch and row gauge. I was curious how I would knit with my new needle set, soI designed an experiment.began with a ball of 100% wool yarn (Knit Picks Wool of theAndes Worsted) and 4 sets of size 7 needles, all made from different materials:1.     Plastic Resin2.      2. Wooden3.      3. Metal4.      4. Carbon Fiber I knitted up a stockinette swatch (30 sts x 45 rows) witheach needle type, then blocked them all very, very carefully to be sure theywerent stretchedAfter the swatches dried and kind of mellowed out for a while, I tookcareful gauge measurements. Then I used the results to figure the dimensionsfor an average sized sweater that is 200 sts wide and 150 rows tall.I was shocked!The results really surprised me: if I knitted a sweater with one kind ofneedle versus another, I would have about a 2" variation in either widthor length. Thats a big difference!

                               
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I was also curious about differences in my "flat vs. circular" gauge because Ive had trouble with sleeves not matching the sweater they are attached to. So I got to work on a circular swatch with my wooden dpns.
Results? There is a difference, of course. If I knitted my 200 st x 150 row sweater with a circular construction, it would come out 1.5" narrower than if I knitted it flat with the same wooden needles. Surprisingly, the row gauge was unaffected.
So whats the take-away from all this?
While your results would certainly vary from mine, I think its important to be aware of how your tools can affect your finished objects and to use this knowledge to your advantage:
1. Knit your gauge swatch with the same needles you plan to knit the garment with.
2. Knit circular swatches for circular garments.
3. The more stitches in a row, the more a difference in gauge affects the finished measurements of the garment.
4. If you need to connect a circular-knitted sleeve to a flat-knitted body, make a separate circular gauge swatch. If you knit like I do, you might need to go up a needle size or switch to a needle made from a different material to get the correct gauge.
5. And for goodness sake, make large gauge swatches! (6"+ is a good rule of thumb)

i hope i did not put this in the wrong place
i hope you have found thins informative

thank you

karriboo

Very nice
Thank you for sharing

MadCat

Thanks for sharing this information.

ThreadEt

Полезная информация

CraftyLouAnna

Interesting study!    Thank you for this information.

PBJ

Thanks for taking the time to experiment and for sharing the results!

Melva

Thanks for the information:)

cuteknit

So nice. Thank you for sharing

LilyMaid

very interesting!
Thank you for sharing

fan-tasie

Very nice
Thanks for sharing