I see a lot of memes about refusing to knit gauge swatches and they hurt my heart a little bit. Like. I get it I’ve been there. But you’re actively working against your own interests. Please just knit a swatch.
@tattinglacework said in the tags of my post about yarn substitution that a gauge swatch is the knitting/crochet equivalent of “measure twice cut once” and I’m stealing it forever now because it’s so true. I’ve had to frog weeks worth of work because I needed to go up two needle sizes and I didn’t do a swatch. But it was better than having a finished shawl that was way too small to be useful.
And listen, eventually if you keep refusing to do swatches and being all “teehee I’m such a rebel” about it, you’re going to come to a project that you’re super excited about, really looking forward to, spend time planning, maybe even buy really nice yarn for it… and you hate the finished product and never use it. Which makes all that work a waste of time.
I know it seems like knitting a swatch is a waste of time but knitting for a week only to have to frog it all is more of a waste of time than the hour I would’ve spent knitting a swatch. Even with cobweb lace knitting where a proper gauge swatch takes several hours (I’ve spent 10 hours on a gauge swatch before and I am glad I did cuz it saved my ass), it’s a looooot better to knit for several hours and know the next 100 hours will not have been in vain.
A swatch can also help you see whether you like how that yarn works up, and can give you an idea of how that yarn drapes and works up. This is important if you are knitting with a different fiber yarn than what the pattern calls for. Some fibers have a lot more stretch than others. Wool is nice and stretchy but silk is not. Cotton isn’t very stretchy. Acrylic stretches and drapes differently than wool or cotton. A swatch will tell you if a fiber is suitable for a pattern.
Some pattern swatches are stockinette stitch and some are in pattern, and an in pattern swatch is going to tell you a LOT about how that yarn will work with that pattern. For example: I like to buy the occasional indie dyed yarn that’s got pops of color and multiple colors per skein. But those yarns are hard to find patterns for because the color change/variegation is so quick that it ends up being very busy fabric. A gauge swatch in pattern will tell me if a pattern will show well or get lost in the variegation. Indie dyed yarn is expensive and I am poor so I want to make something I actually like, is the right size, and I will actually use because looking at it doesn’t make me miserable.
I’m begging you, just make a swatch. At worst you’ve lost a little bit of time confirming your needle and yarn choices work for the pattern. At best, you’re saving yourself from spending dozens of hours on something you’ll never use because it didn’t turn out the way you want, doesn’t fit, and you hate looking at it now.
Also this is important and I’ve deeply regretted not doing it before: treat your finished swatch how you’re going to treat the finished object. Block it if you’re going to block the finished item and then unpin it and let it rest for a while (your swatch WILL lie to you if you do not) before taking any data from it. If you’re not sure how a yarn is going to survive the wash, chuck your swatch in the washing machine to see! Better to felt a swatch than a pair of socks you just spent a week knitting.
I used to be very “no gauge swatch we die like men” so I Get It. I really do. But I have also been in the “didn’t swatch, spent eighteen months and 3,000 beads on a project only to block it and have it be almost exactly a foot too small” boat and let me tell you that’ll change you as a person. Just knit a swatch. It takes so much less time than being wrong does.
So, when I first started crocheting, I would have killed to have a masterlist of resources, so I’m gonna make one. Hopefully there will be some helpful links in here for people. This is by no means a complete list, but hopefully it’ll help get y’all started.
As a biochem student and certified nerd, I feel the responsibility to bestow this knowledge upon as many people as I possibly can:
You do NOT need to “earn” meals through exercise.
You know why?
Because exercise only accounts for about 20% of your calories. The majority of the calories your body burns, it uses to keep itself alive. It uses them to power your brain and metabolism. In fact, your brain ALONE is responsible for spending about 20% of your calories.
Your BRAIN, just to keep itself going, uses up just as many (or even more!!!) calories than all the exercise you do.
Your RESTING metabolic rate is responsible for burning between 60 and 75% of your calories.
You don’t just deserve food because you’re working out. YOU DESERVE FOOD BECAUSE YOUR BODY NEEDS IT TO STAY ALIVE.
As a nutritionist, I confirm this is true
I never thought about the fact that some people don’t know this, but some people’s ideas about nutrition make sense now.
What I learned was that for the average person, it takes 1300 kcal a day just to run your organs. The breathing and digesting and thinking and stuff is what’s using most of the fuel.
I must admit though that I only learned that thinking takes up energy very recently
sooooo can yall help me determine if this is a fireable offense
a lady just came in asking if we have oat milk and we dont so i said “our soy milk is pretty good though, thats what i use in my drinks!” and she looked at me and went “yknow soy milk lowers a mans sperm count” and without thinking i just went “cant lose something you never had”
youre laughing. i got called a soy boy and youre laughing
okay to the people confused by this allow me to shed a little light on the subject
Hot take, but if you see your baby struggle through five hours of homework and then you get pissy because they drag their feet about doing chores? You need to reevaluate.
Like I’m not saying kids shouldn’t be taught responsibility and shown how to keep their house clean. I’m just saying maybe children get tired and frustrated too.
Like. Your teenager doesn’t have an “attitude”. She’s just had 7 hours of school and then came home to do 5 more hours. Then, her parents implied she was lazy because she hadn’t gotten around to doing the laundry. I’d snap at you too.
In case anyone isn’t aware, connections like that are literally called ‘illegal’ techniques in LEGO parlance.
Illegal building techniques are ones that aren’t allowed in official LEGO sets, which always use building techniques designed for and intended by LEGO. The reason they’re called illegal is because they stress the blocks in a way they weren’t intended for, causing various kinds of material failure overtime.
As an example, the blocks in the example above slowly deform over time because, slowly warping until they don’t connect very well to other blocks or each other.
Honestly after playing the main Xenoblade story which had a lot of blushy shipping tease between main characters it’s really amazing seeing the main character of the Torna DLC just openly horny for her hot broody pet anime boy.
