The first thing to do before choosing your size is to measure your bust circumference and not to base it on the size you usually wear with high street brands.
Knitting patterns take the bust measurement in centimeters as a reference, and this is what you should use as a basis.
It is also important to consider the recommended ease of the pattern depending on the style, and add it to your bust measurement to find the size to knit.
For example, if you have a bust measurement of 90cm, and it recommends 5cm of positive ease, you should make a size 95cm.
You can use the table of final measurements which is often found at the end of the patterns, and which will give you the measurements of the garment in width but also in length (sleeves and body). Don’t hesitate to adapt them to your body shape by lengthening or shortening them as needed.
Be careful, never choose your final size before checking that you have the correct gauge.
A knitting pattern is calculated based on a gauge obtained by the designer. All measurements depend on it. If your gauge is different, the final measurements of your knitting will be different, and your garment may not be the correct size at all.
The first thing to do if your gauge does not fit is to change needle sizes from the pattern’s recommendations.
For example, if you use 4mm needles as mentioned on the pattern but instead of 22 stitches for 10cm you get 21 stitches, it means you knit looser. You must therefore go down a needle size and redo a gauge in 3.75mm. The opposite is also valid if you knit tighter, you will need to use larger needles.
If, when you change the needle size, the result is less nice with your yarn (too tight or too loose) and you prefer to stay with the original needle size recommended by the pattern but you have a different gauge, you just need to make a rule of three with the number of stitches on the body of the pattern to see which size to knit.
For example, for a sweater of 22 stitches for 10cm and for a size 90cm, you must have according to the pattern 200 stitches for the body.
If your gauge is 23 stitches, a rule of three will show you that with 23 stitches for 10cm and 200 stitches for the body you will actually get 87cm.
If you take size 95cm which has 208 body stitches, a rule of three will show you that with 23 stitches for 10 cm and 208 body stitches you will get a bust measurement of 90cm.
In summary, according to our example, with a gauge of 23 stitches = 10 cm instead of 22, you will have to knit the size 95cm to get a size 90cm.
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