Tuesday, September 5, 2017

The Importance Of Making A Swatch In Crochet



What is a crochet swatch?  It is a small piece of crocheted work that represents all the stitches used in a pattern for a specific crochet project.  It is also used to check the gauge to make sure that the crocheter meets the required measurement per number of stitches.  It is important in making fitted garments or fashion accessories to ensure that the finished measurement of the garment is met.

Another purpose of making a swatch is to get the crocheter be familiar with the instructions and how the series or string of crochet instructions look once they are made.  It becomes easy to follow instructions given once a crocheter understands and see the result of the crochet commands given.

To determine the size of the swatch, one must look at all the stitches used and the series of repetitions vertically and horizontally.  The swatch should include all the stitches used and all the stitch combinations and repeats both vertically and
horizontally.

Sometimes a pattern is made up of a series of motifs.  In this case, make a swatch that is composed of one motif.  You can determine the size of the project based on the swatch by measuring the width and the length of  the swatch and multiplying them by the number of times to repeat the size of the swatch to obtain the desired size of the project.  You can also use the swatch to determine how many yards of yarn it will take to finish a project by determining how many yards of yarn it takes to make the swatch; then multiply the number of yards per swatch by how many repeats of the swatch it will take to complete a project.

How to determine how many yards per swatch is another topic, I'd like to discuss in a separate post.

Thank you for stopping by and have a fun Crochet Day!


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