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!
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.