You don’t have to get gauge!!
Thanks to the pandemic, much of my at home time is now devoted to reading about all things knitting on all the various social channels I have. One thing I’ve noticed is a slate of posts lamenting an inability to get the specified gauge on a pattern. Another related-to-this-post topic is folks getting gauge but not liking the fabric they created.
Therein lies the key! It’s better to aim for a fabric you actually like, or one you can achieve, and see if you can work a different size of the pattern to compensate.
Caveat: I realize that this could be difficult depending on your size and the sizes available in the pattern. For that, I will continue to advocate for a wide range in sizes for knitwear design in general and provide that in my own patterns!
Example one: you swatch to get a gauge of 5 stitches per inch for a fingering weight sweater. But the yarn you’re using is on the lighter side, and 5 stitches per inch is airy enough that folks might get a show of what’s under your sweater instead of admiring your hand-knit FO! You’d prefer to knit closer to 6 stitches per inch to get a denser fabric.
There’s a good chance you can use the pattern you already have, but knit a different size that will give you the perfect combo of gauge + size. You can also use this technique on individual parts of patterns like sweater sleeves.
First, you’ll need to know your bust circumference + your desired ease.
Inches:
Let’s take a 40 inch bust + 2 inches of positive ease. 42 inches multiplied by 5 stitches per inch would give me 210 stitches at the widest part of the bust in the pattern gauge.
In my preferred gauge of 6 stitches per inch, 42 * 6 would give me 252 stitches. Find the section of the pattern where you have all the body stitches on the needle (that’s front + underarm + back + underarm, so make sure you find the part AFTER the sleeve separation and underarm cast-on!). Do any of the sizes have a body stitch count close to 252? That’s the size you want to knit!
Centimeters:
Same size but slightly different math. We’ll need to adjust the gauge calculation - it will be (6/2.5), giving us 2.4 stitches per cm.
100 cm bust + 5 cm of positive ease will be 105 cm, multiplied by 2.4 stitches per cm, giving us 252 stitches! Find a size with a body stitch count close to 252 and you’re ready to go.
In this example, because you have a tighter gauge than the pattern, you’ll end up knitting a larger size, but the reverse could also be true if you want to knit a looser gauge by knitting a smaller size!
Unfortunately, this method isn’t a silver bullet for accommodating differences in gauge - if you’re already knitting one of the largest sizes available in the pattern, it will be hard to use a tighter gauge to knit a larger size as those numbers may not be available in pattern. Similarly, if you’re knitting one of the smallest sizes, you may not be able to knit a looser gauge and a smaller size. In the same vein, you probably won’t be able to reimagine a pattern written for fingering weight in bulky weight, or vice versa.