I don't recall ever doing a swatch. I've just had a "wing it" mantra (& have been lucky). I really want this to turn out nice AND use up stash so I went ahead and swatched today. I'm a tight knitter so I knew US 6 wouldn't get me to gauge. US 7 gave me 22 sts in 4 inches and US 8 gave me 20 sts. What I really saw in my swatch though is my blending color likely won't work. It "disappears" into the main color. Ugh..... back to the drawing board.