Peaks and valleys

Gauge
It's vital.
It is important to work a sample swatch before you begin each and every knitting project.
Counting stitches to determine gauge while working in Stockinette stitch is relatively easy.

You simply count the knit stitches found on the right side of the swatch.
As you can see by this example there are four stitches to the inch in this sample swatch.
However, I recently received this question in my email inbox:
I was wondering how do you count seed stitches for gauge? I can't figure it out. Do you count the "bumps" What do you count?
The stitch pattern seed stitch consists of a series of knit and purl stitches. The knit stitch makes a bump. The purl stitch makes are valley. So in order to calculate gauge for seed stitch you need to count both the bump and valley.

As you can see in this example there are four and half stitches to the inch in this sample swatch.
I would like to thank the writer of the email.
If you would like Q & A Mondays to continue please send your questions to leanne@oknitting.com I especially enjoy receiving questions that concern my patterns as this one did. Thank you.

Happy St. George's Day! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_George

Today is also the date of William Shakespeare's (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/) birth and death. And the world is celebrating with International book day. To celebrate, tomorrow I will have a special post on my Leanneism blog. Access the blog by logging on to http://www.oknittng.com/ and going to the link page.