Measuring Your Knitting

Over the years I've found, one of the hardest things to do well is measure your knitted fabric. It wants to curl, it can be stretched, you have to hold the knitting down and somehow manipulate a measuring tape or ruler all while the knitting is still on the needles.

I used to measure all my knitting on the area rug in the living room. The rug helped hold it in place. Then I took a class and the teacher talked about an experience with one of her test knitters. She is a designer and gave the test knitter a pattern that of course specified the size in inches. When the test knitter gave the garment to her, she looked at it and said, this isn't the right size. The test knitter said sure it is and she put the knitting down on a rug and started smoothing it until the measurement was correct. At this point, I picture the designer as the cartoon character that turns to look out at you screen and has that "can you believe this" look. AND I realized I did the exact same thing. I put my knitting on a rug, smooth it and then measured it. This was a head slapping moment.

Hmmmm this explained many mysterious things. I have this UFO that I just can't face fixing it. I haven't frogged the whole thing because I'm so close to finished and I really like it. But it's been a UFO for over 6 years and I KNOW I won't finish it but I just can't frog it.

One front is 1 inch shorter that the other. I can't face frogging it because of all the shaping , all the cut yarn and trying to redo it all for an inch. I never could understand WHY oh WHY the pieces were not the same length!



Over the holidays one of the fabric stores had their Dritz cutting mats on sale. So I got one. And was planning on try to use the rotary cutter to cut out a skirt pattern. Last night I had stopped knitting on my Sojourner sweater because I needed to measure the back.

This morning a light bulb went on in my head. So I used my mat to measure my knitting. The mat is slick so it won't stretch the knitting and is gridded.

Look Mom, no hands!!!

The ruler at the top of the mat is the length I need. The ruler on the knitting is just there to keep the top from curling.

I can tell I have 1 inch to go. In the row on the needles, I'm going to put in a safety line and then all I have to do is measure 1 inch from the line.

Here is a pic of the entire sweater. Don't ya just love those cables!