The T word – again!

It’s been a while, I’ve been on holiday which has meant a pause in the Professional Finishing blogging, but I’m back and we shall start again with another blog on something tricky….how many will read this blog??

Ok, let’s get back to it…so we want to knit our own garment.
The first thing I suggest you do is read my blog post or watch my video about sizing so you know the actual figures and measurements of the garment you want to knit.
This will then lead you onto the second thing to do and that uses the lovely word – the T word. I’ve already done a video and blog post on the T word which was for beginners (or anyone really!).

When I hold my Professional Finishing workshops for more experienced knitters, I can ask questions about tension – or gauge – and we can do experiments but that’s a bit tricky here! I don’t know who is reading this right now and whether this will chime with you as it were, so it’s a bit tricky because I am used to talking to people about this in real life. 

Tension, in the basic sense, is how many stitches to 10cm and that determines the size of your garment. We all know that, don’t we? But what does that actually mean to our knitting?

In the last blog I wrote about knowing the size of your garment – the next thing is knitting to that size which is sometimes the tricky bit.

Now, I know the theory on tension and in the Professional Finishing workshop I repeat that theory. I’ve run these workshops now for years – regularly for the last 14 years but I started holding workshops over 20 years ago – and just recently I’ve noticed something. You can say the rules, explain how it’s meant to be and then you see what people actually do, how they approach it and it’s really interesting.
Do you want to know a secret? I don’t think I understand tension either! It’s a bit like how your heart pumps blood around your body, they can give you the theory on it (well I don’t think I could although I did Biology as an A level so I probably could once upon a time!) but then in practice we just do it, don’t we?!
I feel like that’s a bit the same as tension. There is a theory to it and then people just knit. I don’t mean you just knit, I mean that you can measure your tension square and all the rest of it but sometimes those garments fit and sometimes they don’t! 

This is a very helpful blog post isn’t it?! I’m basically saying yeah sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t! So I shall use the theory and the reality and hopefully help more!

I will give you the theory on it but I also think we should just relax about it. There are patterns that I have created which take into consideration that sometimes the tension might not be 100% correct – and that’s ok.

For example if you like the Heaton Tank Top, yeah you do have to watch your tension on this one because it’s more fitted.
But a drop shoulder one, like the Popplewell Jumper, you don’t have to worry about it as much because if you’re a little bit out then it’s a drop shoulder so you’re not going to necessarily notice that inch difference. 

I am breaking so many rules here – I should be being serious about this and telling you to get your tension exactly right. And yes, get your tension exactly right and get your tension square sorted out – I do think that’s important – do your tension square before you start and I will show you some figures on what happens if you don’t but I also think – just go for it! That’s a terrible thing to write isn’t it??

In the workshops I get people to do *spoiler alert* a tension square before they come to the workshop, whoops I hope I haven’t spoilt it now for people who want to come in future.
We measure those tensions and I have found that half the people in those workshops get the pretend tension, so whatever it’s supposed to be, there isn’t a set tension.
There’s always going to be two people that get bang on tension (so half because I keep the workshops at four or five people, nice and small) and half that get either too few or more stitches that ‘stated’. So there’s always going to be those knitters who never have a problem with the size of their garment – it’s always right to what the pattern says – and there’s always going to be some whose garment is either bigger or smaller than what it says. Who they are will change, sometimes it might be you and another time it might be someone else.

So what does that mean in terms of figures? 

If we’re going to do this properly rather than being ‘naughty’, let’s use an example – say you wanted to knit the Ravenscar Cardigan, this is a drop shoulder so that’s ok if you’re out a little bit.
But that doesn’t matter now, we want to get it right. The tension on this pattern is 18 stitches per 10cm and here is a video to show you how to measure tension or you can read here.
So for the sake of argument, we’re going to knit the first size which comes up at 100cm or 39¼ inches if we get those 18 stitches. If we get 17 stitches, which means it’s fewer stitches but it means our garment will be wider, it is going to be 107cm or 42¼ – so 3 inches or 7cm bigger. So even though we’re one stitch out at 17 stitches (rather than the recommended 18) it makes a difference overall of 3 inches. If you do this garment and you think, “Oh that’s ok, I don’t mind if it’s a bit bigger, it’s a loose fitted garment anyway, I’ll just make the sleeves shorter,” then that’s fine.
However if you wanted it to be 100cm and it comes up a little bit bigger then you’re probably going to be disappointed so that’s why it’s good to know your tension before you start a garment, because it is an investment of time and money.
You want to know what your end result is before you start.

If we went the other way and it was 19 stitches instead of 18 stitches – so more stitches which means your garment would be narrower – your finished garment would be 95½ or 37½ inches, a difference of 2 inches the other way. Therefore 2 inches narrower.  If that’s what you’re expecting, that’s ok, you’re prepared for it.

It’s all about knowing the rules, and then it’s up to you if you just want to ignore them or go for them. I think it’s good to know before you start what your tension is and whether the garment is going to be bang on (hopefully) or whether it’s going to be a little bit wider or a little bit narrower.
Traditionally wider is called looser, a looser tension. Now if it is a little bit looser, that means you go down a needle size.
You would try 4½mm to try and get the 18 stitches – if you wanted to get the correct tension obviously which is hopefully what we all want to do. So 17 stitches is a looser tension and you go down a needle size. If you’ve got 19 stitches rather than the 18 stitches on the 5mm needles you go up a needle size because you’ve got, what is traditionally called a tighter tension so that means 5½mm needles. 

You might look at your knitting and it might not look tight and it might not look loose – I’ve discussed this in another blog post – but it’s not how it looks, it’s the stitches per 10cm. So if you do it at 17 stitches (looser) or 19 stitches (tighter) but it doesn’t look looser or tighter then don’t change the needle size. It’s a case of either knowing it’s going to be bigger or smaller or using that yarn for another pattern that has that tension and then looking for a yarn that’s got the same tension as the pattern. 

So this was a cheeky little blog post, I’d probably better do a more professional one next time about tension – and maybe I will!

Article by Jane