Fashion: Yarn Style

Halloween Colors

 

My favorite part of the fall season is all the vibrant colors—the changing autumn leaves, multi-colored gourds, and Indian corn.

 I am jealous of those people with an “Autumn” color palette who can wear all of these rich, saturated colors.

 

I ended up with these yarns before I had taken a clear look at my color palette, and now I’m not quite sure of what to do with them. “Winters” are supposed to be able to wear most of the seasons’ colors, but anything with gold or bronze tones completely washes out my complexion. For those of you who can wear these beautiful colors, I hope you make the most of it in this fall season!

Pumpkins are so scrumptious, both visually and in the pumpkin ice cream they're selling out here in California to mark the change of seasons. Actually, in the Bay Area, the vibrant orange of the pumpkin is a symbol of prosperity. The Half Moon Bay pumpkin festival raises a good $400,000/year for civic organizations and charities. And this year a 1640 pound pumpkin won in the “Titanic Pumpkin Weigh-off Contest.”

And all the pumpkins to be carved for Halloween are grown right here—3,000 tons are grown on average by our local pumpkin growers. Not bad, eh?

 

 

Blue at Work

 

 Blue is starting to stretch out nicely, so I am happy to say I wore it to a work meeting today. I paired the sweater with a grey woolen skirt that was shapely, trying for the “Sweater Girl” look. I am so excited. It was my goal when I started this blog to make sweaters that were presentable enough to wear to work, and with this one I succeeded. I celebrated by cooking a nice dinner for myself and my husband: salade niçoise and lemon meringue pie.

 

It has definitely been a learning experience, approaching my knitting with a much more critical eye. I am finding that my obsession with not ending up with a “craft project” is leading me to spend a lot more time thinking about the finishing of the sweater, which is leading to better results.

 

That brings me back to my knitting goals. In an earlier blog entry, I set a goal for myself for next year. I participated in NaKniSweMoDo this year, the Ravelry group of knitters that challenged themselves to knit one sweater a month in 2009. I have completed 14 sweaters to date, but quite a few of them were sleeveless camisoles, and only half are really wearable for anyone except my cat. 

Notice that Bodhi looks much better in Blue than I do--it brings out the color of his eyes.

For next year, I have committed to knitting 12 sweaters by November, 2010. The requirement is that they have to be figure-flattering tops. I am planning for many of them to be V-necked, and hoping I will be able to wear some percentage of them to work. At the end of my year, I will post photos of my sweaters and poll my readers to decide which are really fit to wear in a professional setting. The sweater challenge is on!

 

 

 

 

Bust Darts for Blue

 

Here is the breakdown of the horizontal bust darts that I added to Wendy Bernard’s top down pattern for Blue:

First of all, the whole idea behind horizontal bust darts is that you are taking a two-dimensional piece of fabric and turning it into a three-dimensional shape in one area. Instead of knitting down continuously in the round, you create a three-dimensional space in front, a pocket, if you will, for your breasts to fit into. Then, once you have created this pocket, you pick up your wraps and go back to your knitting in the round, resuming the two-dimensional fabric.

 

In order to do this kind of pinpointed garment construction, you have to bring the seriousness of a dressmaker to calculating your measurements. It's really not that hard, especially if you get someone else to measure you. 

Once I finished collecting my bust area measurements, I put on my sweater and used safety pins to mark where my bust points were: 

Many people say to wear the bra you are planning to wear under your finished garment every time you try on your progressing top-down sweater, as your girls can shift around depending on the architecture you are wearing. That seemed like reasonable advice, so I followed it. Then I leafed through the various bust dart diagrams and charts provided by Knitting Daily, Honeybee and Rchrispy with some trepidation. But that is what a chocolate stash is for:

 After I had nibbled my way through the charts, I decided to choose one set of instructions and go with it, as I was starting to get that “word problem” panicked buzzing in my head as I was trying to figure out how to reconcile all the different points of advice and calculations. Rchrispy seemed to have the easiest set of instructions for a top-down pattern, so I decided to follow her instruction sequence as closely as I could:

http://www.pursuitoffiber.com/blog/2008/03/24/wicked-is-done-a-bust-dart-tutorial/

 

1.                    Where to start the darts?

I decided to start my bust darts at about ¾ of an inch above my bust apex (nipples), because I didn’t want the wraps to show right on the most visible part of my bust. So once I had knitted down to that point in the round, I put the knitting down and got ready to start my short rows.

2.                    How many short rows to knit?

My back versus front measurements determined that I was two inches larger in front than in back, so I had to get that two inches to translate into a three-dimensional short row pocket. My row gage was 8 rows per inch, so multiplying 8 rows x 2 inches, I got 16 short rows to fit my front curvature.

3.                    How many sets of short rows?

Short rows come in sets, a knit side and a purl side, so the 16 rows divided into 8 sets of two.

4.                    Where to start the wraps?

I looked at my sweater, marked with safety pins at the bust points. I decided I didn’t want to start my wraps immediately on my nipple, but at least half an inch to the side, towards my armholes. My stitch gage was 6.75 stitches per inch, so I went 4 stitches away from the safety pins, towards the underarm, and decided my first wraps would be there.

5.                    How many stitches between wraps?

I got confused at the point where I was supposed to determine the number of stitches between each wrap.

When I followed Joan McGowan-Michaels’ Shapely Tank pattern, the wraps were next to each other, as you worked up the rows, with no stitches in-between. So the idea of spacing out my wraps was confusing for me. I tried starting my short rows on Blue with no stitches between wraps, but I didn’t like the density of fabric that was created—in this top-down, sport weight pattern, the wraps side by side looked too obvious. So I pulled out my charts again. Then I added up the number of stitches between my side seam, at the armhole, and my wrap starting point, which I chose to be 4 stitches in from the safety pin that marked my bust point (nipple). I came up with the number of twenty-four stitches in-between. That meant I could space out my wraps two stitches apart. (24 divided by 8 wrap sets = 3 stitches. 1 of the 3 stitches is the wrap itself, the other 2 stitches are spaced in-between.)

6.                    Should I start my short rows at the wide end  or the narrow end?

Short rows form a pyramid. Since you are spacing out your wraps, you are creating a three-dimensional space that gets progressively wider or narrower. Every time you do a new set of wraps, you are moving in towards the top of the pyramid, or going in the opposite direction:

 

                      KKKKKKKKKKK W& T

                      W& T KKKKKKKKKKK

                KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK W& T

                W& T KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

          KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK W& T

          W& T KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKW& T

W& T KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

K= knit  / W& T = wrap and turn

 

So you have to decide if you are creating a pyramid shape that is getting progressively wider, or progressively narrower. In other words, do you want to start your wraps closest to the armhole area, or closest to the bust points?

I chose an inverted pyramid. Following the advice of rchrispy and others, I decided to start with the wide base of my pyramid at the start of my top-down bust darts, and move in as I went down with my progressive wraps. This is easier when you are knitting from the top down, because it means that you can pick up your wraps incrementally as you knit down. So, for example, on the knit side, you will knit across and wrap and turn. Then you pick up the wrap you just made and purl across, wrap and turn. Then, on the knit side, you pick up your recent wrap and knit across, and so on.

 

That method worked well for me. Actually, it all turned out great—I have enough space for my bust in the sweater, and the wraps blend into the body of the sweater pretty well, without being too noticeable. As you can tell, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants as I did this, so I can’t really justify the decisions I made, since I didn’t entirely understand the underlying principles behind the steps I was following. My rationale was, it seems to be working and I trust rchrispy, so here goes!

 

One thing that I did that was a bit unique with my bust shaping in this sweater is that when I started my bust darts, I was working with an overbust area that was four inches less than my actual measurement. So what I did was I created four inches of negative ease in the sweater at the ribcage area, and then I added two of those inches back in with the “pocket” I created for my girls. This created a really good fit in the chest area, which I needed because the last time that I knitted Wendy Bernard’s Pink, there was far too much width in the chest area created by the raglan shaping, and I didn’t want to have that problem again.

 

Well, if you’re at all like me, you’re eyelids are probably getting heavy and you're thinking about taking a nap at this point in your reading. Honestly, these kinds of technical knitting descriptions are so dry—that’s why I think so many people shy away from bust darts. It’s one of those things you have to experience, hands-on, to get a sense of what’s involved and feel comfortable. Let’s face it, there are a ton of knitters out there that avoid even knitting a sample gage because they don’t want to have to deal with the math. It’s a lot easier to have someone else tell you what to do the first time around. That’s why I think it’s best to start first-off with a pattern that has bust darts and all the calculations built in, so you can get a feel for it. Once you’ve had the experience, it’s not so intimidating to branch out and try putting the short rows into a sweater.

I’m curious about how many of my readers have tried bust darts before, and what their experiences were.  

Busty Matters Continued

I was the kid who sat in the back of math class and doodled while various incomprehensible math propositions whizzed past. Even to this day, if you mention word problems to me, the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Unfortunately, my need for bust shaping in my sweaters led me to wander into bust dart territory. My math anxiety did not predispose me to remain calm when I looked at mathematical charts for calculating bust darts depth and width and wrap sets. In fact, the columns of numbers and text, with constructions such as "measure X - y to determine D, then take D + 1 divided by 2" were enough to send me fleeing to the hills.

 

So, my first time out knitting bust darts, I did what any self-respecting non-analytical would do—I looked at someone else’s recipe, and copied it word for word. 

Shapely Tank, by Joan McGowan-Michaels

Joan McGowan-Michaels designed lingerie for establishments like Frederick’s of Hollywood before she became a knitwear designer, so I turned to her for guidance. In response to the buzz generated by the lively bust dart tutorials offered on Knitting Daily some time ago, Joan McGowan-Michaels designed a free pattern that you can find on her website: www.whiteliesdesigns.com. Her free Shapely Tank pattern has built-in instructions for bust darts—depending on your cup size, you follow the instructions and voilà all the hard calculating work is done for you. McGowan-Michaels even integrates short-row shaping into the design at the bottom of the sweater, so you have a chance to practice your short rows before you get to the ultra visible area of the bust, where all your imperfectly picked up wraps will show.

 

My version of the Shapely Tank would look better if I had used negative, instead of positive ease. Still, following the pattern gave me some confidence to try bust darts on my own. I learned a basic recipe for creating short rows that corresponded to my cup size in DK weight yarn, and I determined that I need to start my bottom-up bust darts 3.5 inches from my waist, which is a measurement I can now apply to any bottom-up DK weight sweater pattern. This is one of the crucial things you have to figure out to make sure your bust darts are successful: where to start them? The other thing you really need to learn is some familiarity with short row shaping.

A really good source for advice on short row shaping and picking up wraps can be found at knitpicks: short row tutorial

I have found that it’s the picking up of the wraps, particularly on the purl side, that is crucial to avoid strange-looking lumps in the bust area. I am still better at picking up knitted wraps than purled ones—the left side of Blue was totally smooth in the bust  area, but the right side, where I had purled my wraps and turned, has a little knobbly line that I had to work hard to block out. 

Perhaps there’s a better technique for picking up purled wraps out there somewhere I will find some day!

 With Blue, I was on my own, since the original pattern, Pink, has no suggestions on bust darts. So I turned to rchrispy’s excellent tutorial for guidance. Her top-down bust dart tutorial can be found at this address: http://www.pursuitoffiber.com/blog/2008/03/24/wicked-is-done-a-bust-dart-tutorial/

 

Here are some general pointers on deciphering the various charts offered by Knitting Daily, rchrispy and honeybee on bust dart calculations:

A.  a.  Take a deep breath. 

B.   b. If still in panic mode, eat a chocolate bar

C.    c. Read the charts several times and then get someone to measure you before picking up your knitting needles.

 

The Dimensions of Your Bust Area:

The key to success and sanity with bust darts is to simplify it all down to a few proportions that you can measure. Do your measurements wearing the (correctly-sized) bra you will wear with the sweater you are going to knit:  

1.    1. What is the width of your underbust? Get someone else to measure your ribcage just below where your bra starts (and fastens).

2.    2. What is the distance between your waist midpoint and your bust apex (nipple)?

3.    3. What is the width of your overbust? Measure your width in the underarm area, approximately at the spot where your bra cups are connected to the straps.

4.    4. What is the distance from the top of your shoulder to your bust apex?

5.     5. What is the width of the fullest point of your bust? Husband’s love to help with this measurement!

6. 6 .    What is the distance between your bust points (nipples)?

 

Once you get all those measurements out of the way, you will feel much more relaxed. Just knowing your upper topography makes all kinds of sweater shaping easier, whether knitting bottom up or top down. Even if you never venture into bust darts, you will have gained a great deal from the exercise of getting to know your own complete bust area. A bunch of knitting patterns—Stephanie Japel has designed many of these—insert a decorative panel in a sweater that is supposed to sit in the underbust area. It is critical that the lace or cable pattern be fitted properly so that it sits between the part where breast curvature starts and the waist ends. Yet, all over Ravelry, you see finished sweaters where the knitters didn’t bother to figure out their own measurements. The result is a disaster! Usually, what you see is a decorative panel that climbs halfway up the bust, giving the illusion that the wearer has four boobs instead of two! Japel’s Simple Knitted Bodice seems to be the worst offender. There are over 600 finished sweaters using this pattern on Ravelry, and you can really tell the difference between a knitter who knows her own measurements and one who blindly followed the pattern.

Designer's photo of Simple Knitted Bodice w/correct placement of decorative panel

Even if you never venture into bust darts, knowing your measurements will ensure that your sweaters will always give you the appearance of having the correct number of breasts!

If you are brave enough to venture forth, pour yourself out a glass of wine and sit down with a great source, such as rchrispy’s bust dart tutorial:

http://www.pursuitoffiber.com/blog/2008/03/24/wicked-is-done-a-bust-dart-tutorial/

 

I will break down my own efforts with Blue in relation to that tutorial in my next post.

Blue

 

Blue is finished at last! I am absurdly excited about this sweater. This is my second version of Wendy Bernard’s well-written pattern, Pink. The second time is always better than the first! I am in love with this sweater.

One reason that I like this one so much is that I had my color palette in mind when I was choosing my yarn. Instead of looking for the “best color out of the yarn on sale,” or just getting excited about something without regard to myself, I made a commitment to finding yarn that was in keeping with my best “winter” colors. It’s taken me a while to catch on to the fact that I’m the one wearing the sweaters, so I should be holding the ball of yarn up to my wrist and face to make sure that the color suits me!

I really like the finishing of this sweater better than the last version. The V-neck is narrower, which is a better look for me—a wider V-neck makes wide shoulders look even bigger, whereas a thin V minimizes them. I also like the simplicity of the neckline, which I finished by picking up stitches, knitting 2 purl rows, 2 knit rows, 1 purl, and then casting off purl-wise. This kind of edge gives Blue a more polished look than what I achieved in Pink. I just can’t knit the ribbing evenly for it to look as good as this double-garter finish.

Pink

 I also love the finishing at the bottom and cuffs on Blue. I did a doubled-over hem there, which to me has a much more finished look than ribbing. 

(

The technique I used to finish the cuffs was to purl a row, and then eliminate 1/4 of the stitches by knitting them together. Then I knitted the remaining stitches on a needle two sizes larger than I'd used for the sweater. The result was a hem that practically folded itself inwards, and lay really flat so that it was easy to sew to the back. I really like the look at the edges of the sleeves and hem:

Blue is definitely tighter than usual—so tight that you can see the waistband of my pants underneath, which is not really a great look. The reason the sweater is so tight is that the wet-blocked swatch of the Debby Bliss Baby Cashmerino yarn grew so much that I deliberately made the sweater in a size smaller in the fear that it will grow with several washings. In fact, I knitted all my measurements to the wet-blocked gage rather than the dry one. I have washed and blocked it once, and it hardly grew at all, so I’m at a loss to explain it, but still I’d rather err on the side of too small, since I’m sure it will naturally stretch over the course of 5-10 wearings and washings.

 

Until it does get looser, it is probably not appropriate to work. But look at the great hour-glass shaping here, achieved using double decreases & increases!

The part of the sweater I’m proudest of is the bust darts. I actually made Blue with 4 inches of negative ease in relation to overbust measurement, and then I added two inches back in right at the bust apex using short rows. It wasn’t easy to figure the darned formula out, but I think it worked out fine, and the wraps don’t look too obvious. I’ll break down what I did to create the bust darts in my next post.

Getting Closer to the Beaded Edge

http://www.naeemkhan.com/

The more I think about finishing a sweater with beads, the more excited I am about the idea. But it’s been quite a challenge trying to find a technique to pull it off without producing something that will scream, “craft project!”

http://www.lilychinsignaturecollection.com/books.php

 

First, I played with the idea of actually knitting the beads into the sweater. But since all I really want is a beaded edging around a V-neck collar, I'm not sure if it's necessary to knit them in. Especially since most of what I’ve seen is just a bunch of little seed beads that form lumps in the knitting. I want to make a bolder statement at the collar than that.

 

http://www.naeemkhan.com/

Next I fantacized about imitating the designer collections this season. This would mean sewing the beads into a regular pattern along the edge of the sweater. Naeem Khan's sweaters are just to die for, and it is amazing the effect he has created using this technique.

Sweater 23, Summer 2009 Vogue Knitting

There is even a sweater pattern in the Summer Vogue that explores sewing svarovski crystallized elements along the neckline of a sweater. For the past week, I’ve been trolling various websites that sell svarovski crystallized elements. If I could find 1” square or rectangular-shaped crystals that matched the color of my sweater, it would be tempting to use them to ornament my sweater's V-neck. However, there is a stumbling block to this type of ornamentation:

Svarovski sew-on jewels

Crystallized elements are expensive. And since they’re rather small, I’d have to buy a lot of them. That’s my biggest problem with this whole approach. I’m not sure I’m ready to spend $30/$40 on something I’ve never tried before in the hopes that I can pull it off. Good grief, you can knit a small sweater for that amount of money. And since I’m not a couture seamstress, I’m just not sure I would be able to sew all of these beads into a symmetrical enough pattern around the collar to keep it from being obvious that it’s handmade--not in the couture handmade style I've seen on Valentino cardigans but handmade as in a squiggly string of beads that wanders along the collar with a will of its own.

 

The ideal solution would be to buy a pre-made, beaded trim, such as this spectacular rhinestone trim, offered at M&J trimming. This is perfectly symmetrical, so I would be guaranteed an even, finished looking edge. This particular trim was recommended by Martha Stewart. It also happens to cost $70/yard. Hmmmmm. Not going to happen.

 

Still, I liked the idea of the beads being pre-attached to something so that I could ensure a regular, symmetrical placement of the beads around the collar. I discovered the perfect solution on my latest visit to Britex,  the sewing superstore in San Francisco, while browsing in the wedding section. Beaded ribbon:

 What I like about beaded ribbon is that all the work is done for me. The beads are attached already in a symmetrical pattern that the ribbon will hold in place, so all I will have to do is to sew the ribbon on. I tried the ribbon against my ribbed V-neck, Pink, and the glinting trim looked fantastic close to the ribbed edge of the sweater. So that means I can knit a top, finish it with some ribbing, and then lay my ribbon close to the edge and whip-stitch it against the body of the knitted fabric. It doesn't sound as if any super sewing skills are required for this, and I should get a nice clean edge. We’ll see what happens when I get to that stage! I haven’t even started this sweater yet!

 

This is the yarn combination I’ve picked out for my bead-trimmed sweater. I'll be combining Rowan calmer, "Tinkerbell" (on sale for $5/ball from Janette's Rare Yarns) with Rowan kidsilk haze. The resulting knitted fabric will be stretchy but strong, and have a wonderful softness akin to angora. Here is the beaded ribbon I will be using to finish it:

The sheer ribbon is similar enough in color to the yarn that I am hoping it will melt into the knitted fabric, leaving only the glittering beaded edge to catch the eye. Now I just have to find the right pattern. I’ve almost finished my second incarnation of Pink, which I’m calling Blue, and I’m ready to try a new top-down approach. I’m currently speed-dating top-down knitting designs that have set-in sleeves at a worsted weight but I haven’t met my dream pattern yet. Why are simple set-in sleeve stockinette sweaters from the top-down so difficult to find? At least now I am prepared to finish my sweater, before I even begin!

Starting From the End

 

Audrey Hepburn, knitting 

Have you ever sat down and imagined that you have achieved your goal before starting out? When I knit, I am actively imagining myself with a wardrobe of sweaters with the flair and simple elegance of an Audrey Hepburn film. After all, she was a knitter, and no one could wear sweaters like Audrey Hepburn.

 

There’s a lot to be said for starting from the end, imagining you have already achieved the outcome you desire. Sales people practice this positive thinking technique all the time. As realtors, we encounter so much rejection when seeking potential clients, that we have to program ourselves to think positively. Interestingly, the lowest rate of suicide is in the sales profession. But imagining a positive outcome is beneficial in any creative endeavor. Visualizing a perfect sweater helps me make better decisions in the planning stages. I didn't used to think about things like this, but then I’ve been taking a different approach to my knitting these days. Before, I was so eager to finish that I hardly took the time to sew my sweaters up properly. Now that I’m starting all over with an empty closet, I have a real motivation to create reasonable-looking garments I can wear in public. So I find myself thinking about the finishing of my sweaters before I begin.

 This elegant cardigan by Kim Hargreaves, Darcy, is next up in my project queue. I’m going to be knitting the cardigan in black, with Karabella’s scrumptious merino yarn, Aurora 4. I know Karabella’s Aurora line well enough to expect that it will produce a high-quality fabric that will last over time.

But just creating fabric isn’t the purpose of my knitting any more. I want a jacket that I can wear to informal meetings with clients. Which brings me to the question of how to finish the cardigan. I’m a little skeptical that a simple seed-stitch triangle is going to produce a stiff collar as opposed to something that will dangle a bit limply around the neck. So I am brainstorming various ways to reinforce the collar before I start.

One option is interfacing. I want to stiffen the collar somehow, and I don’t think it would be too hard to find a lightweight black knit fabric to use as a backing for the collar, and sandwich some fusible or sew-on interfacing in-between.

I am also wondering about the purl-stitch panels that form scallops at the bottom of the sweater. Will they hang evenly? If I lined the entire cardigan from the inside with light-weight black knit fabric, would it help firm the panels on the bottom, giving them a more even and weighted fabric? Or would that create something too bulky for this cardigan? What do my readers think?

 

Body Image

 

Fashion seems to be inextricably linked with body image. Without a clear sense of what kind of figure you have, how can you make sure you’re looking good in your clothes? But have you noticed how reluctant we are to look at ourselves in the mirror?

Stacy London & Clinton Kelly in TLC's What Not to Wear

I watched an eye-opening episode from Season 4 of What Not to Wear the other day about a woman named Dara. This courageous woman had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and was currently working as a psychiatrist. This woman had so much moxie that she actually challenged Clinton to a push-up competition, and counted out 90 reps in front of the camera! Yet she was terrified to reveal her figure with form-fitting clothes. This size 4 woman had a great body but she was ashamed of her figure, and was hiding it away with clothing that made her look much larger than she really was. At the end of her experience with Clinton and Kelly she burst into tears, because the experience of wearing clothing that actually fit made her realize that she was a beautiful woman after all.

Everyone complains that we are obsessed with ourselves in this culture, but I think we are obsessed in the wrong way. It’s the tiny blemishes we seem to focus on when we look in the mirror rather than seeing ourselves as a whole. The Body Project is a fascinating book that studies the way that American women’s self-esteem has dissolved over the past 100 years. Studying girls' diaries 100 years ago, the girls reflected just as much on their character (morality, goodness, relationships) as their bodies. But teenage girls in the 1990s seemed to agonize over dieting, breast size, acne and so on to the exclusion of the deeper character issues that young women cared about 100 years ago. Reflections on moral choices and relationships had taken a backseat to deliberations on whether or not to consider breast implants. The irony is that all this interest in physical beauty isn’t making us feel any more beautiful. Many of the teenager’s diaries in The Body Project were self-critical.

I personally experienced this phenomenon when I was teaching writing to Community College students. My writing unit on “Body Image” became a major focus of my course because eating disorders and low self-esteem abounded in my adult students, from Russian, Chinese, Japanese, to Latin American and U.S.-born individuals. And don’t think it was just the women—the men wrote about their eating disorders and insecurities too. The irony was that these students, mostly ranging from 18 to 25 were gorgeous. They were for the most part, young, thin, fashionable young people with fresh skin and great hair. As an antidote to the widespread self-depreciation they communicated in their writing, I had all of them compose a one-page poem about the part of their body that they liked the most, inspired by Wendy Ewald's book, The Best Part of Me. Feet, lips, chests, whatever my students felt moved to praise went into their poems. A lot of them associated the favorite part of their body with a skill, like piano hands or soccer legs. The students wrote these wonderful poems, and I pasted them all over the walls of the classroom. As they walked around, reading each other’s writing, a new feeling of hope and empowerment surged through the room.

(You can find children's poems inspired by Wendy Ewold's book here: http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/MrsThonus/student.cfm?subpage=183068)

In written exercises like this, where they interacted with media images and their own writing, my students discovered the power of the written word to shape their perceptions of themselves. I believe that if we wish, we could use our knitting knowledge in the same way. It is a powerful act to make your own clothing, and I believe that we can wield our knowledge of our bodies and our knitting techniques in an empowering way—to make clothing that celebrates our figures and creates a positive vision for us to see when we look in the mirror. All that’s holding us back is our own Body Project Diaries, that we’ve been writing so long in our own minds, we don’t stop to take a critical look at ourselves to see if the words are even real.

Finishing is Everything

)

I had an eye-opening experience today at the doctor’s office. Yes, the reason for my silence the past few days is a car incident that injured my back. Luckily, things are starting to improve, so I am at my keyboard again. My physiatrist knows that I am an avid knitter, because his treatments are the reason I was able to take up knitting again! I should really knit him a scarf or sweater one of these days to thank him, as his diagnosis effectively cured by back and neck pain and allowed me to become the obsessive knitter I am today!

>)

Anyway, there I was in the doctor’s office, wearing “Pink” paired with some accessories that I was hoping would make it look like a “real sweater”. Some trouser-cut brown woolen pants, brown leather heels in the same warm pinkish color family as my sweater, and a snazzy purse. The physiatrist took one look at me and said, “you made that sweater, didn’t you? It looks handmade.” Sigh.

 

)

Here I am, trying so hard to create knitted clothing I can wear out in public without everyone noticing that my sweaters are handmade. I even paired Pink with great accessories to try to create a finished looking outfit. What went wrong?

 

)

In my opinion, it’s the finishing on a sweater that makes all the difference. I just don’t think the ribbing at the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater make the cut. First of all, the sleeve is a bit short. I am feeling kind of tempted to unravel and redo the sleeves to make them longer, and finish them with something other than the wavy ribbing that broadcasts the “homemade” signal to other people.

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And look at the ribbed hemming at the bottom of the sweater. I think this is the “achilles heel” of Pink. The ribbing just isn’t even enough to do justice to this sweater. Ribbing is kind of the standard finish for most sweaters like Pink. I’m not really sure of where to go with this, to get a more finished look at the hem.

 

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Right now I am experimenting with my new incarnation of Pink, Blue. This sweater has been a bit of a challenge, because my wet-blocked swatch of the Debby Bliss Baby Cashmerino grew by leaps and bounds after washing, so I’m having to make the sweater way smaller than my normal measurements, because it’s probably going to gain a lot of width after a few washings. Talk about negative ease on this sweater! Anyway, I’m trying a different finish on the cuffs, neckline and bottom of this sweater. My mother-in-law, the knitting master, Pipapo (you can find her amazing projects under that name on Ravelry) suggested a turned-under hem for a more finished look.

 

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The technique is that you knit to the desired length of the sweater (this is from top-down) and then you knit a row of purl stitches.You can see the purl stitches above the metal knife, which is holding the hem down. Next you reduce as many stitches as you need in the next row—in my case, I did a K1, K2tog, K1, K2tog pattern throughout the row, so that I had reduced 1/4 of the stitches. The, switching to a pair of circular needles two sizes larger than the ones I had used on the sweater, I knitted in stockinette for another inch and cast off loosely. (Let me tell you, I had to unravel this four times until I found this formula, which seems to work.) I am going to apply this finish to the sleeves as well, and see how it turns out.

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This is more or less what it will look like when the hem is turned under, unblocked. I hope it will look much more even when it is blocked! We will see.  The knitted fabric seems to grow so much after washing that I am waiting to sew the hem under until I block the whole thing to make sure that it will lie flat. When I finish, I will post pictures here.

 

In the meantime, do any of my readers have any other ideas for finishes that would work for this sweater, and keep it from looking “homemade?” I’d love to hear your comments!

Busty Matters

Dita Von Teese launches party edition for Wonderbra

Sometimes it seems difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff in the matter of bust shaping. There is so much information out there, but none of it is organized in a central place. I stumbled on knitted bust darts completely by chance. I was looking through photographs on Ravelry of sweaters that seemed to fit knitters perfectly, and then I read the project notes, trying to isolate what the factors were that had contributed to the knitters’ success. There were two factors that I saw in common across a variety of exquisitely-shaped sweaters. Many of them had been knitted from the top down, and many of them used bust darts.

Bust darts? What are those? I wondered. After a bunch of searching, I discovered “The Bust Line,” a Ravelry group that devotes itself to discussing bust shaping in knitting. Through “The Bust Line,” I stumbled onto some written instructions by Honeybee and rchrispythat gave excellent pointers on bust dart shaping. And Knitting Daily has a great tutorial from last year on bust darts that you can find on the web. 

Honeybee’s bust dart advice can be found now published in a two-part article in issues #15 and #16 of “Yarn Forward”, a British Knitting magazine that you can order online. Those are two recent issues from this summer, so they should still be available. Rchrispy’s tips on bust darts can be found on her blog on this page:

http://www.pursuitoffiber.com/blog/2008/03/24/wicked-is-done-a-bust-dart-tutorial/

Vertical vs. Horizontal: Which is best?

Salsa, by Kim Hargreaves 

I’m still not entirely certain about when to use vertical versus horizontal bust darts in my sweaters, or to combine both. Some sources, like “Vogue Knitting,” say that vertical bust darts are better for an hour-glass figure. Above is a photograph of a pattern by Kim Hargreaves, Salsa, that is designed with vertical bust darts that are made into a dramatic design element by using double decreases and then double increases that form a clear line up the center of the sweater in line with each bust point, from hips to bust. Unfortunately, you can’t see the vertical line too clearly in this photo, but I think that is good. It is a subtle design element that melted into the finished sweater when it was blocked. This sweater was not made for me, but it was a gift for someone who has different measurements than mine, so it was a bit of a challenge to make something that approximated her figure without her being there! We live hundreds of miles apart, so when we met at a professional conference this summer, she tried it on for the first time and I took the photo above. The wearer does have an hour-glass figure. I do think that this design was flattering for her, although she requested positive ease so she could layer the cardigan with garments underneath. 

The most important thing I learned from knitting this cardigan pattern of Kim Hargreaves’ is the technique of using double decreases, which I always use for waist-shaping now, to accommodate my short waist combined with hour-glass curves. I like the way that I can quickly shed up to six inches from hips to waist, bottom up, or bust to hips, top down, without creating a severe line underneath the bust, which you see in some of the designs in “Big Girl Knits.” I have heard great things about the bust shaping instructions in that book, and I’m sure it’s a great source of information. I just don’t like the look of some of the bust shaping, such as in the pattern, Bombshell. The title kind of tips you off. In fact, the vertical bust dart forms a flagrant line that goes from the nipple to the underbust, like an arrow pointing from your girls to your waist. 

Against a smooth, stockinette fabric, this line is very obvious. The last thing I want to see cutting across the round shape of my breasts is a ragged line that is evocative of a scar bissecting the breast tissue.  For my own personal sense of taste, the linear, symmetrical dots created by Kim Hargreaves’ decreases and increases are much more flattering. The vertical line from hips to bust that Kim Hargreaves' design creates acts the same way that a V-neck does, drawing the eye up and down the figure, and balancing out your proportions. For those of us who have enough weight on top to find bust darts almost a necessity, we may not want to draw the eye to our bust points, but to a slim waist or another feature of our figures instead! 

 

Another pattern that exposed me to vertical bust darts was Delphine, from French girl knits. Kathleen Griffin-Grimes cleverly uses a lace pattern that increases in the bust and hips and decreases at the waist to create very effective hour-glass shaping.

Look at the flattering line that she creates from hips to waist and then waist to bust through the vertical darts!

 My most challenging experience with bust shaping to date has been the Spring Vines vest, so I'm not sure whether or not to recommend this pattern: 

Unfortunately, the pattern was confusingly written--it is currently being revised--and it required a whole KAL group (Sexy Knitters Club, Q2 2009) to figure out the pattern. The pattern does have some ingenious shaping techniques. By adding wedges of stockinette framed by seed stitch that decreased from the hips to the waist, the vest creates nice vertical hip darts. 

You can see what a flattering shape this created from the hips to the waist best by looking at this photo of the unfinished garment from the back:

The cable pattern up the center front made it impossible to do vertical dart shaping in the bust, so I added in horizontal bust darts through short rows that created a three-dimensional fabric. (More about that later.) 

Most knitters who did not add bust darts to the pattern found that the vest was too small to accommodate their bust, so the addition turned out to be a life saver!

 

Why don’t more patterns incorporated some kind of bust shaping? Because bust sizes vary so much, and it requires some calculations and knowledge of your figure that many knitters don’t have. This is sad, in my opinion. It is a bit of an empowering experience to become familiar with our upper topography and to design garments that fit us there, to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have the time and the means to design our own garments from scratch. In the meantime, we have to go on collecting random bits of information here and there, and do our best to fit the techniques we learn to the individual sweaters we are working on, designed by someone else. It’s a tall order, and I can’t help hoping to find a formal book of techniques that addresses more body shaping issues in knitting.