What is a crochet swatch?

Merrian Holland Author

Jun 13, 2026 |

Previously I have spoken about the importance of washing and blocking our crochet swatches. If you are thinking "what is a swatch?", then this post is for you.

A swatch is usually a square piece of fabric you make up in the stitch pattern of your garment, using exactly the same yarn and hook you will be using for your final project. It's also sometimes called a gauge square, or tension swatch, or test square, or gauge sample or any combination of those words.

It's basically a way of testing how your chosen yarn, hook and stitch pattern will look and behave together.

Swatching also familiarises you with the stitch pattern, in particular how the edges are made so that you're less likely to make mistakes or messy work when you start making the garment,

Information we gather from a swatch may include:

1. Does the gauge of our starting chain / foundation stitch match the gauge of the main stitch pattern?

2. Do we like the look of the stitch pattern and yarn together?

3. Does it create the desired drape? This might be a fabric that needs to be flowing or relatively "stiff" for more structured pieces.

4. Are we happy with the openness/density of the stitch pattern? For lacy patterns we do want "openness" and for dense stitch patterns we don't want big holes or gaps.

If we're following a pattern and making a specific size of garment, we will need to match the gauge/tension of the pattern, i.e. a specific number of stitches and rows per 10cm/4in.

If we're making our own patterns, we still need stitch width/row height to calculate how many stitches we need for it to fit us.

We also use the swatch to help us calculate how much yarn we need for a project.

Swatching is therefore a PROCESS that may require several attempts with different sized hooks or yarn, or even stitch patterns.

I've also written about why we need to wash and block our swatches : here.