What is Row Gauge & Why Does it Matter?
What is gauge?
Gauge measures the number of stitches and rows you’ll need to work to achieve a specific width and length of fabric. The most common gauge instruction is to work X sts and Y rows to 4 inches (or 10 cm).
Both knit and crochet patterns include a gauge measurement to ensure your finished piece matches the measurements of the schematic.
What is row gauge?
Row gauge is simply the number of rows you need to work to get a certain length of fabric.
Why is row gauge important?
Row gauge is important because many fit issues in garment patterns relate to the length of certain pieces - most commonly sleeve length and armhole depth.
Many knitting and crochet patterns instruct the maker to “work even in pattern for X inches.” The most important thing to note is that this measurement is based on the blocked measurements. If you work 5” even in the pattern before the piece is blocked, it could grow to 6” after blocking.
To mitigate any sizing issues related to row gauge, convert this measurement to the number of rows you need to work.
If the pattern instructs you to work even for 5” and your row gauge is 4 rows per inch, you’ll need to work 20 more rows.
Another benefit of converting this measurement to the number of rows you need to work is that you can match the number of rows on all pieces of the pattern.
This will also make seaming easier as you’ll have a 1:1 match of rows for your pieces.
Quick Tip: keep track of the number of rows you’ve worked by keeping a row tally in a project tracker, or placing a locking stitch marker every 10 or 20 rows. If you keep this stitch markers in place, they will also help you line your pieces up for seaming.
What If You Have Two Different Row Gauges?
Some patterns include gauge measurements over two (or more) stitch patterns. A typical example is a garment where the back piece is worked in an allover lace pattern, but the front is worked in Stockinette stitch. If the row gauges differ, you’ll need to be mindful of how many rows you work for each piece.
Let’s say your Stockinette stitch row gauge is 8 rows/inch, and your lace row gauge is 9 rows/inch.
At first glance, this doesn’t seem to be a critical difference, but the impact is clear when it’s over a big stretch of fabric. If you need to knit 16”, that would translate to 128 rows for the front and 144 rows for the back.
So how do you seam those two pieces together? The ratio of rows between the back piece and the front is 1.125. When seaming, I would do a 9:8 seaming ratio to match the row gauge of each piece. To make the seam even cleaner, I’d suggest blocking the garment one last time.
