For the love of math, and math alone, some days I just love the knitting.
It doesn’t hurt to be a Stone Cold Row Counter, either.
How else could one start a project, marinate it for a few months, pick it back up and Carry ON?
My Cassidy cardi (Carodan Farm Worsted Weight Yarn; Color: Lt. Blue) was just one such item. I finished the Left Front, then got about 2/3 done with the Back before high Summer waylaid it. How to continue and match the pieces?
Like many of you, I make a working copy of the pattern then do Mark-Up. In the margins, I keep track of rows in various places (length of ribbing, length to underarm, length to shoulder, total length, etc) as reference points for the entire sweater.
If you notice, sweaters knit in pieces already have this functionality built in. They usually start you out with the Back Piece first. Here you will find the Rosetta Stone for the Fronts. Many times, knitters email me with shaping questions about cardigan construction and I always refer them back to the Back.
Now, this requires a slight leap of imagination, because the Back, as is, is the Mirror Image of the other pieces and not the doppelganger…
All of the shaping information one needs to make the Body and Armhole areas of the Fronts are already accomplished on the Back.
AND, the concept works in my favor here as well. When I dug my cardi out from the Marination Chamber, I simply had to count the rows to the top of the shoulder from the Left Front and know that I could easily match the length with no prob…
Your Marination Chamber (MC) is so elegant and compact. Mine is HUGE!
It looks like it does, indeed, deserve to come back out into the light. Very pretty!
I would bet you have been too busy to take a deep breath since the news broke about your Guv. As someone retired from the broadcast news biz, please accept my sympathy and good wishes for a breather before too much longer.
My question is about the armholes. I hate drop sleeves..I do mean hate. How do you measure for the depth of the armscye, especially on big girl arms when writing a sweater pattern.
I like the way your sweaters sit at the top of the shoulders.
BTW I burned your ears on Ravelry!!!
WOW! Thanks for the shout-out!
I haven’t been online for a couple of days because I have pneumonia and have head-first in a pillow so I didn’t see it :(
Armholes: Basically, I tell people to find a sweater in their wardrobe that fits them well. Measure the area that you want to duplicate the fit and see how it compares to the dimensions of the garment they want to make.
Sometimes you will get a better fit if you use a sleeve size one size larger (which typically has a slightly longer armhole).
Sleeve caps don’t vary too much in height. The circumference of the sleeve at the underarm is important for a decent fit.