Why embrace swatching?
Okay, makers—it’s confession time. When you see the word swatch, do you find yourself instantly glossing over it with a little rebellious thought: “I don’t really need to swatch, do I?”
I kind of get it - you're so excited to start your project that you want to dive right in. Besides, why would you waste time, energy, and precious yarn to create a small little square first? I mean so unnecessary, right?
Well, full disclosure on my part: I love swatching. Love, love, love — as in shouting my devotion from the mountaintops. That’s how much I adore swatching. Indulge me as I share why the word swatch deserves not just your attention amid the excitement of starting a new project, but your curiosity, joy, and completion.
First the obvious: gauge
Checking for gauge is why we're told to swatch before casting on for a new project. Why? Because gauge is everything. It’s the foundation for all the sizing math in a pattern—so you end up with a garment that fits and one you’ll truly love wearing. A gauge that doesn't mesh with the pattern means adjustments are necessary to achieve fit. If you don't check your gauge with a swatch, you have no idea where or how to make adjustments. How disheartening it is to halfway finish - or worse, completely finish - a sweater only to have it not fit. Surely that is a waste of time, energy, and your investment in yarn.
Gauge isn't just for fit
Gauge also is about achieving a desired fabric and swatching is important even for squares and rectangles. For example, our Norah Gaughan Alai Cowl is simply a rectangle that is folded. However, its design is based on a particular fabric that has a specific gauge to yield a functional and appealing accessory. I once saw this cowl knit in a much looser gauge and it wasn't remotely the same as the original. I don't have a photo of the unrecognizable version - you'll have to use your imagination of buttons falling off the shoulder and a fabric that was simply way too stretched to be either functional or appealing.
How can swatching ever be fun - or promote curiosity?
Creating fabric
As a budding designer (and now with our brand new camel yarn to create for), swatching is akin to a blank canvas for an artist. It's how I can experiment with finished fabrics. When I find a desirable fabric, I then am equipped with that fabric's gauge as the foundation for exciting new garment and accessory patterns. In fact, an appealing fabric structure often tells me what garment or accessory that fabric should become. In other words, the fabrics that come out of swatching are the muse for pattern designs.
Exploring stitch patterns
What other way is there to discover which stitch patterns best show off the qualities of a yarn? Besides, have you ever looked at a stitch dictionary and really contemplated its potential? In my humble opinion, stitch dictionaries are to die for and I cannot own enough of them. Some yarns are amazing in stockinette stitch. Others show off stitch definition beautifully (like our cashmere and camel yarns). We do not know how a yarn will shine until we try out different stitches - with swatching!
Playing with colorwork
I could get out my colored pencils and graph paper and make color combinations in the squares, but that isn't the same as putting colors into stitches and seeing what works together. It also might be I see a colorwork pattern I like and knit a swatch only to find that my fabric gauge doesn't complement the colorwork pattern.
The latter is the case in this houndstooth swatch I tried: the loose gauge made the colorwork pattern stretch out. By swatching, I can see potential for the colorwork in a tighter fabric.
Why swatch if I'm not a designer?
I get it. You're thinking that you are not a designer and never will be, so swatching still is not for you. Consider the following.
Understanding your yarn
Swatching as the first step to your knitting project lets you get to know the yarn you are working with. What if you cast on 250 stitches only to find 30 rows later that you do not like how the yarn knits up nor how it feels in your hands as you knit. . . Or you're just about to begin a specific stitch pattern and you can tell the yarn isn't going to do the pattern justice. . . Maybe the yarn is nice to knit with and all, but after some hours of knitting, you're still not seeing the pattern and yarn mesh. Except you didn't know that magic happens with that particular yarn when you wash and block it.
Swatching would allow you to work out all those bugs on a small square of fabric. You can affirm if you like everything involved in the knitting and understand how washing will affect your finished project. That's a swatch for the win all over the place.
Learning techniques
Hopefully, a pattern has a technique that is new to you. Take the slipped I-cord edge as a finishing technique for scarves and wraps (like is on my Wanderer wrap). I've had knitters new to that technique write to me asking if they're misunderstanding the slip stitches on the edge. Won't that create a visible strand of yarn to the back? The thing about this technique is that you have to do it for some rows before you can see how beautifully it evens out your edges.
Slipped I-cord pulled out to illustrate that it takes some rows before the edge does what it's intended to do.
If you read through your pattern and identify what is new to you, you can incorporate those techniques into your swatch and master them before starting your project. In the case of the slipped I-cord, you can try several rows of the I-cord edge compared to no I-cord edge so you can understand the difference. Maybe you decide you don't like the I-cord edge and want to do something different. Swatching gives you confidence and license to make your knitting your own.
Choosing color combinations
Just like when I play with colorwork in design, you can use a swatch to ensure that you will like the color combinations you've chosen for a pattern before embarking on the entire project. Once again, it would be a lot of wasted energy to get deep into a project only to discover the color combinations or placements don't work for you. A swatch gives you that information before starting.
Did I convince you?
I hope what you will take from this post is that swatching doesn't have to be a chore that impedes your anticipated start of a project. Rather, swatching is the start of your project as it is the testing ground for all the things: gauge which leads to fit, desirable fabric, appealing color combinations, mastered techniques and stitch patterns. It's the blank canvas that expands your skill and confidence and leads you to the results you want in your knitting.
Get a skein of cashmere or camel and start swatching!
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and enjoy our Spring/Summer 2025 Hump Day series. In Episode 6, I talked swatches!
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Until next time, may you find joy knitting with our yarn! --Amy