
I know, I know. You don’t wanna swatch. I’ve heard it all before, truly. (I’ve felt it all before! Truly!) But let me take a moment to make a heartfelt plea on behalf of the humble swatch.
There are three things you need to know about swatches.
- Swatching is easy. Truly, it is. It takes a small amount of time. (A show, if you’re a tv knitter; a chapter if you read, like I do.) It involves a small number of stitches. It lets you flirt a little with the yarn you’re considering for your project.

- Your swatch is a fabric sample. Swatches are your only chance to see whether you’ll like the fabric you’re making that sweater from!And most of us don’t want to spend hours and hours and hours (and hours) knitting an entire sweater, only to find that the yarn / gauge / pattern combo are totally inappropriate. Your swatch is the way to avoid that pain down the road.

- It’s more important to know your own gauge than match someone else’s. This is especially true for CustomFit, but is even true for a standardized knitting pattern.If you like the fabric you’re getting, but your gauge is a little off from what’s written, you have options! You can re-work numbers of course, but you can also see whether the stitch counts for one of the other sizes will work for you, at your actual gauge.
Think about it: As long as your gauge is predictable, you can make the rest work.

“Okay, okay!” you’re saying. “Uncle! I’m ready to swatch!”
“…but don’t really understand how. Don’t laugh!”
I’m not laughing. Swatching gets such a bad rap, it’s a wonder any of us know how to do it.

Here’s what I recommend:

I hope I’ve convinced you to give swatching a try? It’s an integral part of using CustomFit, and fun to boot.
What’s your favorite swatch or swatch story?