What am I knitting?

The Hourglass Sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. As I mentioned before, I could either go for speed or for skill. With this sweater I decided to go with both. Speed for the knitting, skill in the adjustments that I will make. I plan on knitting this sweater to fit ME - my big rack (which, btw Ben is figuring out how to say in Italian for me), small chest, short waist and long arms. Added to this is the yarn - I’m using yarn with a different row and stitch gauge.

The final challenge is to blog about it all. I knit everyday and have finished quite a few projects over the last few months. Unfortunately they have not made it to this blog (they will!). Not to mention my inability to alter a pattern and WRITE DOWN my changes.

This is the yarn. It’s wool from Habu Textiles. I picked this up during our trip to NYC early in December. No idea what kind of fiber it is. I’m going to be with a butt load of spinners/knitters next weekend. Hopefully someone there can give me a hint.

I started this project by first measuring sweaters that I own that I consider to be well fitting.

Sweater A:

Sweater B:

Sweater C:

I turned the sweaters inside-out so that I could see the seams. I found it a lot easier to measure them this way.

I then got Robby to help me measure my own dimensions:I spent some time with Grumperia a few weeks ago at Claudia’s get-together. I asked her to explain reverse-ease. Which, in Bookish Terms, means knitting a sweater to fit the circumference measurement taken under your armpits and not your bust. When you look at the sweaters above you see that the area under the armpits (and straight down to the waist shaping) is 19″, 18″, and 17″. My bust is 18.5″. Before I sat down to measure my favorite fitting sweaters I would have chosen a 39″ size for a sweater. Which would give me a width under the armpits of 19.5, 1″ greater around than my “bulkier” sweater of 19″ or 5″ greater than my “tight” sweater.

This is interesting to me - I’m not sure how this works or what will happen. But I have decided to go for it. My Hourglass Sweater will have a diameter of 18″.

This means that I’ll be casting on for the second size, chest of 37″ (diameter 18.5″) - a size I NEVER would have chosen if I hadn’t measured my sweaters first. Here’s to hoping it was a smart decision.

Gauge is the next hurdle for me. I swatched on Thursday hoping that I would get a jump on the action and be able to hit the 2pm start time running. Not so much. I swatched flat. The sweater is knit in the round. And, well, we all know that swatches lie. My swatch got gauge.

I cast on for a second “swatch”, one of the sleeves.

5.2 sts/inches (we’ll deal with row gauge later.)

Pattern Gauge 19sts and 24 rows = 4″

Not the same. This gauge has stayed consitent throughout the sleeve. I’ve been a measuring fiend. Mostly because it gives me more data to plug into my fancy pants spreadsheet that I created (you’ll see it later.)

No matter, once I knit up more of the sleeves I realized that I was okay with the width.

If not worried a little bit that they were too wide. I decided that I would knit up the rest of the sleeve and alter the body pattern to meet my gauge.

This sweater is knit in three tubes, the sleeves, and the body. The yoke could easily be modified (with the help of a sophisticated spread sheet such as the one below.)

This spread sheet allows me to change one or two numbers and the entire patter will adjust. Pretty cool huh?

Yes, I fully understand the psychosis present here.

I’m just about to finish Day 3. I will post today’s progress tomorrow. Until then, here is my progress as of yesterday:

Until then - this will be me:

PS - I’m SO happy that you all liked my Pasta maker post. It was a great day with my Grandmother. She is an amazing woman, not without her faults, but amazing all the same. I hope that you will all get to hear more about her soon. And yes, I would totally make pasta again. In spite of the hard work it is SO GOOD. I had eaten homemade pasta on many occasions before. It tastes a lot better when you make it yourself with Grandma looking on!