Welcome my lovely blog-readers! Today's post, based on no significant progress on the mitts or blanket combined with conversations I've had, is once again on gauge. I wasn't all that clear before on it, and I want to clarify things for non-crocheters. For those of you who know what I'm talking about, sorry!

Okay, so basically the gauge is math! Sorta. It can be seen as a formula such as (weight of yarn + size of hook) + (number of stiches plus number of rows) = gauge.

First off, yarn weights.

So here you can see that these strands of yarn have different thicknesses. The thicker the yarn, the 'heavier' the weight, although it's not always visually apparent. For instance, the blue strand is a sport/baby weight while the white and green are both worsted/medium weights. It's had to tell from the picture that they're different sizes, but they are. So that's the yarn weight. Next, hook size.

Hooks come is a wide variety of sizes. These aren't all of mine, and I've got on hook that is quite a bit bigger than the blue one I have featured here. The second picture is of the bigger one compared with the tiniest hook I have.

So, what does this mean? Well, the heavier the yarn and the bigger the hook mean that you need less stitches to get a certain area space. For instance...

This is bernat blanket yarn with a size 6.5mm hook. Five stiches (across) and five rows (up) equals 2 inches. So the gauge is "5 st,5 rows = 2 inches". But this same yarn with a smaller hook

Has a smaller gauge. This hook is 5mm, and 5 st, 5rows =1.5 inches.

Sometimes for certain projects it doesn't matter if the gauge is perfect. However, if it's important to get the size just right, like in clothing, then it's extremely important, and you want to check your gauge and adjust the size of hook/yarn that you're using so that you can get the gauge.

Another thing you need to watch out for when figuring out gauge is that you've got the right size hook with the right weight of yarn. Here I've got the sport/baby weight yarn with the 6.5mm vs the 5mm hooks. As you can see, the 6.5mm workup is a lot looser. This makes the crochet less stable, or more lacy. So if you want a looser crochet, then a lighter yarn and a larger hook to get your gauge will work, but if you want a tighter crochet, then a heavier yarn and a smaller hook to achieve gauge is what you want.

Most yarns, however, have a place that shows what their 'normal' gauge is. It's generally located with the other yarn information.

Here we can see the gauge in the center at the top. To its right you can see the image of a hook and a 5mm at the top, so that indicates that they used a 5mm hook to achieve the gauge, which is 16 stitches and 24 rows to make a 10X10 cm square. To the left of the gauge is the yarn's weight, and below are the care instructions (in this case, it means it can be machine washed in cool water, do not bleach, dry on low heat, do not iron, and I forget what that last symbol means right now... feel free to remind me in the comment section below!)

So to sum up, gauge is how many stitches and rows it takes to make a certain size of square with your yarn and hook. Patterns usually have a hook/yarn that they say to use, but as people may crochet looser or tighter than that, its always important to check your gauge and adjust accordingly, especially if you're not using the suggested yarn.

Clear as mud or actually useful? Please let me know by commenting below.