Hi Jane, welcome to KAS. There are wonderful people here. I started in January and had SO many questions and people helped. As for your square, I found that so much depends on the thickness of the yarn. I took one lady's idea and made an 8 in square cardboard that I keep in the three ring binder of my patterns. On it I've listed the stitch counts for an 8 x 8 according to yarn weights and needle size. I find that a 5.0mm or a 4.5mm works for me with 31 or 32 or 33 stitches. If your square came out at 7 in, it may be the yarn was very fine (if so, double the yarn - fine baby type yarn especially and knit with 2 strands). If you used heavier yarn, well crochet an edge around it! Check out the photo page - great inspiration there. And on the home page there are some close-up photos of the kids wearing blankets that made it clearer to me as to what the squares should look like. Hope this helps a bit. My first squares came out the "wrong" size so I added to them and made them in to a vest! Welcome again!
I used to use 6mm needles with 8 ply yarn and about 32-33 stitches, but found that with some of the supposed 8 ply yarn the squares came out too thin and stretchy...thankfully Wendy suggested using 5mm needles (as she does) and now that is what I use and I find about 38 stitches (I'm a reasonably firm knitter) gives me 8" squares. Another alternative would be to make 'diagonal' squares as they apparently come out the right size every time...lots of our members successfully do these (I haven't tried it yet.) The instructions for these I think from memory you will find by clicking on the 'patterns' tab at the top of the page, then clicking on the appropriate pattern. Hope this helps...and that you can follow my garble.
If you haven't already done so, you may like to click on the 'photo' tab at the top of this page...there are many inspirational photos from our members, some of which are diagonal squares. When you have completed some squares please post some pics. for us to view, we love to see each others work...no pressure..lol.
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Hi Jane
Happy birthday...hope you're having a great day.
Hi Jane, welcome to KAS. There are wonderful people here. I started in January and had SO many questions and people helped. As for your square, I found that so much depends on the thickness of the yarn. I took one lady's idea and made an 8 in square cardboard that I keep in the three ring binder of my patterns. On it I've listed the stitch counts for an 8 x 8 according to yarn weights and needle size. I find that a 5.0mm or a 4.5mm works for me with 31 or 32 or 33 stitches. If your square came out at 7 in, it may be the yarn was very fine (if so, double the yarn - fine baby type yarn especially and knit with 2 strands). If you used heavier yarn, well crochet an edge around it! Check out the photo page - great inspiration there. And on the home page there are some close-up photos of the kids wearing blankets that made it clearer to me as to what the squares should look like. Hope this helps a bit. My first squares came out the "wrong" size so I added to them and made them in to a vest! Welcome again!
Welcome, Jane...from Western Australia.
I used to use 6mm needles with 8 ply yarn and about 32-33 stitches, but found that with some of the supposed 8 ply yarn the squares came out too thin and stretchy...thankfully Wendy suggested using 5mm needles (as she does) and now that is what I use and I find about 38 stitches (I'm a reasonably firm knitter) gives me 8" squares. Another alternative would be to make 'diagonal' squares as they apparently come out the right size every time...lots of our members successfully do these (I haven't tried it yet.) The instructions for these I think from memory you will find by clicking on the 'patterns' tab at the top of the page, then clicking on the appropriate pattern. Hope this helps...and that you can follow my garble.
If you haven't already done so, you may like to click on the 'photo' tab at the top of this page...there are many inspirational photos from our members, some of which are diagonal squares. When you have completed some squares please post some pics. for us to view, we love to see each others work...no pressure..lol.
We are glad you have joined us.
Happy knitting.