Knitting Math

thenerdyyarnlady

Dec 18

I dislike math, generally speaking. Just never learned to love it I guess. But at least with knitting it makes sense to me. In planning my garter stitch lap throw with Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool I stopped after about seven inches to weigh the rest of my cakes of yarn and take some measurements to determine how long I can make my throw.

My calculations tell me that one row of knitting with a size 9 needle on 160 stitches uses two grams of yarn at four stitches per inch. So, one garter ridge (two rows) will use four grams of yarn. Also, twenty-five ridges (fifty rows) measures six inches and uses one hundred grams of yarn, which gives me 200 grams per twelve inches of knitted throw.

I have 202 grams of the cochineal yarn, 143 grams of the grey yarn, 227 grams of the tea-dyed yarn and and over 600 grams of the natural cream colored yarn = 1,172 grams; divide by 200 grams (the amount needed for 12" of knitted fabric) which gives me 5.86; then I multiply that by 12 which gives me 70.32 inches of knitting which is more than I need for this project. Ta da!

I am alternating the cochineal with the natural cream colored yarn in random stripes until I run out of the cochineal at which point I will switch to the grey yarn and cream, then on to the tea-dyed yarn and cream. In order to cut down on the number of ends to weave in I am carrying the yarn I am not using at the time up the side of the throw, on the wrong side the way I do when I knit the Ludlow shawls.

It looks a little loose and sloppy now but after it is soaked in wool wash, put through the spin cycle on the washer and blocked to dry, all of that will smooth out quite nicely and be hardly noticeable. This is 100% wool yarn, not super wash. It...will...shrink...if not handled properly. No agitation. Cold water, soak in Eucalan and then spin out the water.

After it's completely dry it will relax and 'grow' a bit. Wool tends to do that so it's best to allow for that when planning a project. The gauge I'm using for this project will allow the throw to drape nicely and not be too heavy.

Hope your Monday is a good one. Stay safe. Stay cozy. God bless.