How to Knit: Circular Speed Swatching

Knitting a gauge swatch is a crucial step in making knits that fit! Knitting in the round can produce a different gauge than knitting flat, so making your swatch the same way you'll be knitting your project is especially important. Our favorite swatching trick for circular knits is "speed swatching", which allows you to accurately measure your gauge without casting on a large number of stitches.

Written Steps

Using a circular needle, cast on the number of stitches needed for your swatch.

Work the first row of your swatch, then instead of turning the work or joining to knit in the round, slide the live stitches back to the rightmost tip of the needle. Leaving a long tail floating loosely across the back, bring the yarn to the other end and knit from the first stitch on the needle, across your row of stitches again. Repeat this maneuver, sliding and bringing your yarn back to the tip of the needle, for the desired number of rounds. Note that you are working all rounds from the right side, just as you will be when working a circular garment.

If you’re swatching stranded fabric with two colors, knit the first and last two stitches of every round with both colors held together. This will lock each of your colors securely at either end of your swatch. (Your gauge will not be affected by these doubled edge stitches.)

Tidy up the edge stitches every few rounds, as they can be a bit loose. When you’ve worked the necessary number of rounds in your swatch, bind off all stitches. The back of your speed swatch will have several long floats draping across the back, one float for every round worked.

You can either leave the floats as-is or cut them, then block the swatch as you plan to block your project.

Related tutorials:

Swatching 101

Blocking 101