Swatch problem... help!

[brownnl]

I'm working on the green shrug from Leisure Arts Crochet Shrugs booklet. I have a lovely purple heather-type wool I want to use for it, but I wasn't sure of the weight of the yarn, so I did the swatch to make sure it would work. Well, the swatch is supposed to be 4 1/8"w x 4" high. It came out 4 5/8"w x 4"h. So the height is right, but the width is about 1/2" too wide. I'm at a loss. Should I do the beg ch tighter? I thought if I dropped a hook size, it would be too small all around, so tightening the beg ch is all I could come up with. Would this work? Any other ideas? Or is this yarn just not going to work at all?  Thanks for any suggestions!

[Parilla]

If you begin the chain tighter, you'll end up with a really tight bottom that spreads out as you go up, and it'll curl like bacon.  The easiest thing to do is to take a look at the pattern and see if it has directions for a slightly smaller in width, but equal in height, shrug.  Then follow those directions, being sure to check frequently that it fits.  When you try it on, put a safety-pin through the active loop and pin it to the rest of the work - because otherwise, the hook will drop out and the entire thing will unravel while you try it on.  Go ahead, guess how I know that.


The only other things I can think of to do are to a) drop a hook size and add more vertical rows, if your pattern will allow it, or b) stay this size hook and take out some of the horizontal stitches.

[rina]

Ai-ya!  It's awful to find out that different yarns not only have different stitch widths, but different width-height ratios when knitted or crocheted.  As if life wasn't complicated enough....

I would say it's much easier to work the size that is a different width but the same height because it can get really confusing once you mess with the row counts. Good thing most sweater patterns have just one length across size.