Measuring gauge for 1x1 rib

[afuna]

I'm trying to figure out how to measure gauge for 1x1 rib, and I'm running into issues figuring out what to do with the stretch. Should I measure it stretched, compacted, or loosely together on the needle?

If it makes any difference, this is for a hat (pattern: Greentrelac Beret) -- only my second time doing a hat, and I didn't have to measure gauge for the first one, so I'm not sure how to go about this one now.

Comments

[rhivolution]

I would say about halfway, personally. Usually the pattern will say how it's supposed to be measured, though, so it's hard to say.

[afuna]

*checks* The pattern just says to "Work a gauge swatch in 1x1 rib, and note the number of stitches in 4"."; I've been hoping there's some sort of standard (or commonsensical rule of thumb) for measuring gauge on things to be worn.

Your advice of "halfway" worked! So thank you! I'm very stoked about finishing this hat *g*

[gloss]

"Slightly stretched". So not crammed together, but not so stretched that the purl valleys are the same width as the knit peaks. Does that make sense?

[afuna]

A lot, yes! I measured something like this, and ended up subtracting a couple of stitches from when I was originally measuring unstretched, and the hat isn't finished, but from preliminary playing around I *think* that it fits just fine. So thank you!

[seryn]

Usually you want to measure texture how it's going to be worn... So I would not stretch the ribbing out before gauging it.

For a beret you want a lot of "negative ease" in the band. So head measurement minus 20-25% otherwise the weight of the large top pushes it down your nose.

What I would suggest as an easy starting point is to take your stockinette gauge and then do your ribbing on a needle one size smaller. So if you have 5 stitches to the inch, you want a slanty beret for the standard head size of 22inches. You'd want 110 stitches minus about 20-25% (22-27.5) so you'd want about 85 stitches for a beret band. (84 or 86 since you're doing 1x1 ribbing)

My current hat has those numbers. I cast on with #9s, I did the ribbing in #6, and I am doing the body in #7. To a certain extent that's a magic handwaving thing and doesn't explain why this works, but I do not like to make several gauge squares for the same project.

[afuna]

Thank you!

I'm not sure I understand what measuring how it's going to be worn means, though. As I understand it, wearing the hat would stretch out the ribbing, so if I'm measuring to its measurements when I'm wearing, would it be better to measure stretched, rather than unstretched?


Laughing at the image of the beret perched on my nose - and point taken *grin*


Re: 22 inches, oh hey, so my head is the standard measurement! That'll be very useful for future projects, thank you!

And yeah, those last two paragraphs make a whole lot of sense. The first hat I made (the one that didn't talk about gauge!) did something similar; I thought it was specific to that pattern, but now that I'm seeing it's generalizable, I'm very excited about how easy it is *G*