Do-overs
Knitting is a very user-friendly hobby in that you can mess it up pretty horrendously and yet still be able to rip it out and do it over right. Not too many pursuits of which that can be said! How often have you wished for a "Delete" key that would work on something you just said out loud, or a "Restore" button to let you go back to an earlier version of your life before you made some disastrous decision? (Computers have us all spoiled with their do-over capacity.) It's a good thing knitting has that potential, because I've had to do some do-overs on sweaters this month. I mean, if I were sewing and had cut the fabric out too small or the wrong shape or something...too bad! But with knitting I can do it over until I'm happy with it.
Of course that means having to rip out stitches I worked many hours to complete, and that is sometimes frustrating enough to make me just go with the imperfect version of the stitches and not try the do-over. But on my current sweater, I'm really glad I did go back and fix the problems.
I've been working since Christmas (not constantly) on the Simple Knitted Bodice. [raveled] It's a fairly simple top-down raglan sweater; raglan shoulder seams are nice on my narrow shoulders, and top-down means you can try it on as you go to be sure it'll fit. The pattern has a lace detail at the waist to fancy it up a little; the original had a beaded yarn used for the lace, but I am cheap (and not so fond of shiny things as, say, Mum :-) and am just using a contrast color. I had, soon after Christmas, gotten to the point in the pattern where you start the waist detail, worked a bit of it in the contrast color, tried it on and discovered that the waist detail was, on me, more of a bust detail. Not exactly the place I want to put lace in a contrast color, they don't need any more attention drawn to them. Soooo I had ripped back to before the waist section and let the project sit for months while trying to decide what to do.
I knew I was going to have to do some sort of bust shaping to make it work. After perusing photos of other people's versions of this project on Ravelry (the most useful thing about Ravelry, if you ask me), I thought I also needed to start the waist detail lower so the V-neck wouldn't be all stretched out of shape over my bust. I read some different tutorials on bust darts but the one that finally worked for me was in Interweave's Knitting Daily newsletter a couple of weeks ago. So on take 2 of the sweater, I measured myself and calculated everything and knit in some vertical bust darts. I worked past there till it was into the waist detail and tried it on again...
But, alas. Those extra rows that my bust needed, well, my back did not. You can see how in the front, the sweater isn't yet to my waist while in back, not only is it long enough to be done, but there's extra fabric pooching out above the waist detail. I get that back-pooch a lot in storebought clothes, for I am funny-shaped. The whole point of knitting my own clothes is to be able to make them fit me better than the storebought ones ever do, so, after agonizing for a while over how much knitting I was going to have to rip out, how many thousands of stitches and how many hours wasted...I went ahead and ripped back to before the bust darts for another do-over.
This third time, I got even more complicated with the knitting math and worked out how to do not just vertical bust darts (decreases in the front to cinch in the fabric under my bust to be narrower than the fabric at the widest point of the bust...) but also horizontal darts, which would allow me to work extra fabric over the bust but NOT over the back simultaneously, by going back and forth knitting on just the front for a couple of inches. I had to coordinate a lot of stitch markers: this one means to decrease before the marker, this one means decrease after the marker, this one means wrap and turn here and go back in the opposite direction...but, amazingly, it all worked out. After that I worked the waist section again and:
No pooching. Also...
Waistline not any higher in front than in back. (Though the way I'm standing in those pictures makes it hard to tell. Trust me, front and back really are even now.) Success!
So I went on with the waist detail, then came the hip shaping. The pattern's instructions seemed insufficient for my curviness, so I did more knitting math. Measured my waist, my hips, and the distance between the two, and figured out (A) how many inches difference (B) how many stitches that equaled at my sweater's gauge, and (C) how many rows I had in which to get that many stitches added to the circumference of the sweater. The pattern called for four increase darts, two front and two back. I added two more in the back to be able to get all my stitches increased without having to make it longer than I wanted. And...
You can kind of see how it flares out over the hips.
Close up of the front:
And the back, with its extra two darts:
No photos on me yet but I'm very happy with how it now fits! It skims my curves very nicely without any of that pooching or pulling or whatever.
Next step is the sleeves - as you saw above, I've finished the first and am almost done with the second. Detail of the first sleeve:
That row of irregular looking stitches is the row that was on the holder-yarn while I finished the body of the sweater. It's going to need blocking to get them to calm down and match the rest of the sleeve.
So all that I have left is to finish the left sleeve, then knit the neckband. Weave in a few ends and I will be DONE! I am liking this "seamless top-down sweater" concept. :-) (It's the second top-down raglan I've knit, the first being one I sort of winged from Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top. So I'm familiar with the construction and will probably make lots more of this sort of sweater!)
Of course that means having to rip out stitches I worked many hours to complete, and that is sometimes frustrating enough to make me just go with the imperfect version of the stitches and not try the do-over. But on my current sweater, I'm really glad I did go back and fix the problems.
I've been working since Christmas (not constantly) on the Simple Knitted Bodice. [raveled] It's a fairly simple top-down raglan sweater; raglan shoulder seams are nice on my narrow shoulders, and top-down means you can try it on as you go to be sure it'll fit. The pattern has a lace detail at the waist to fancy it up a little; the original had a beaded yarn used for the lace, but I am cheap (and not so fond of shiny things as, say, Mum :-) and am just using a contrast color. I had, soon after Christmas, gotten to the point in the pattern where you start the waist detail, worked a bit of it in the contrast color, tried it on and discovered that the waist detail was, on me, more of a bust detail. Not exactly the place I want to put lace in a contrast color, they don't need any more attention drawn to them. Soooo I had ripped back to before the waist section and let the project sit for months while trying to decide what to do.
I knew I was going to have to do some sort of bust shaping to make it work. After perusing photos of other people's versions of this project on Ravelry (the most useful thing about Ravelry, if you ask me), I thought I also needed to start the waist detail lower so the V-neck wouldn't be all stretched out of shape over my bust. I read some different tutorials on bust darts but the one that finally worked for me was in Interweave's Knitting Daily newsletter a couple of weeks ago. So on take 2 of the sweater, I measured myself and calculated everything and knit in some vertical bust darts. I worked past there till it was into the waist detail and tried it on again...
But, alas. Those extra rows that my bust needed, well, my back did not. You can see how in the front, the sweater isn't yet to my waist while in back, not only is it long enough to be done, but there's extra fabric pooching out above the waist detail. I get that back-pooch a lot in storebought clothes, for I am funny-shaped. The whole point of knitting my own clothes is to be able to make them fit me better than the storebought ones ever do, so, after agonizing for a while over how much knitting I was going to have to rip out, how many thousands of stitches and how many hours wasted...I went ahead and ripped back to before the bust darts for another do-over.
This third time, I got even more complicated with the knitting math and worked out how to do not just vertical bust darts (decreases in the front to cinch in the fabric under my bust to be narrower than the fabric at the widest point of the bust...) but also horizontal darts, which would allow me to work extra fabric over the bust but NOT over the back simultaneously, by going back and forth knitting on just the front for a couple of inches. I had to coordinate a lot of stitch markers: this one means to decrease before the marker, this one means decrease after the marker, this one means wrap and turn here and go back in the opposite direction...but, amazingly, it all worked out. After that I worked the waist section again and:
No pooching. Also...
Waistline not any higher in front than in back. (Though the way I'm standing in those pictures makes it hard to tell. Trust me, front and back really are even now.) Success!
So I went on with the waist detail, then came the hip shaping. The pattern's instructions seemed insufficient for my curviness, so I did more knitting math. Measured my waist, my hips, and the distance between the two, and figured out (A) how many inches difference (B) how many stitches that equaled at my sweater's gauge, and (C) how many rows I had in which to get that many stitches added to the circumference of the sweater. The pattern called for four increase darts, two front and two back. I added two more in the back to be able to get all my stitches increased without having to make it longer than I wanted. And...
You can kind of see how it flares out over the hips.
Close up of the front:
And the back, with its extra two darts:
No photos on me yet but I'm very happy with how it now fits! It skims my curves very nicely without any of that pooching or pulling or whatever.
Next step is the sleeves - as you saw above, I've finished the first and am almost done with the second. Detail of the first sleeve:
That row of irregular looking stitches is the row that was on the holder-yarn while I finished the body of the sweater. It's going to need blocking to get them to calm down and match the rest of the sleeve.
So all that I have left is to finish the left sleeve, then knit the neckband. Weave in a few ends and I will be DONE! I am liking this "seamless top-down sweater" concept. :-) (It's the second top-down raglan I've knit, the first being one I sort of winged from Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top. So I'm familiar with the construction and will probably make lots more of this sort of sweater!)