(no subject)
Feb. 1st, 2006 10:34 pmThere is a reason why I knit from patterns. I could design my own, but I appreciate the predictability that's supposed to come with the pattern-knitting experience. Knit the pattern, get the sweater. Press the button, get a cookie. Or an electric shock. Whatever.
(Probably worth noting: I have never, ever managed to knit a sweater entirely from someone else's unaltered pattern with which I was remotely satisfied.)
I have a book, possibly the most thoroughly despised knitting book of all time, which contains a pattern I'd like to use. There are, however, problems.
The pattern is for a tunic-length, fitted, ribbed, turtleneck sweater. With the length stated in the pattern, the sweater will come down to midthigh. This is too long. So there's the first thing I'll need to change.
The sweater starts out narrow - 28 inches at the hip. Do we all see the problem? I know that ribbing stretches, especially in bulky yarn, but I think -10 inches of ease is an optimism that simply cannot be justified. I'm going to have to approach that somehow.
And then. Then. The little pattern schematic that comes with every knitting pattern shows a piece that goes straight from hips to waist and then curves gracefully out towards the bust line. Unfortunately, the pattern instructions do not support the schematic. The pattern is a trapezoid from hip to bust.
Now, remember that thing I said about my hips not being 28 inches around? My hips are the widest part of my body. Therefore, the hip should not be the narrowest part of my sweater. The widest part of the sweater pattern is the bust. I don't want to be obvious about showing that part off, but it seems inherently wrong that the part I'd be happy to emphasize is the part that will be most generously draped.
From here, we turn our attention to the sleeve, and the dratted schematic comes in again, so bear with me. The pattern guage is 3.75 stitches per inch. The pattern instructions say to cast on 32 stitches for the sleeve in size small, 34 in medium, and 36 in large. I do not have to do any math to know that not all of these numbers can result in a sleeve 8 inches in diameter, the way the schematic claims it will be. I'm not even going to start on the sleeve cap. I'm leaving that alone for two reasons: I am halfway through my second drink of the evening, and the sleeve cap schematic appears to be a hallucination that Suss Cousins had sometime in between starting a yarn store and publishing a photo of her husband that looks like Uncle Fester taking a break between shock treatments.
The schematic appears to be quite a nice sweater. It has only the vaguest of relationships to the pattern. The schematic and the pattern are third cousins twice removed, or fifth cousins by marriage or something. I would like to knit the schematic. I will have to abandon the pattern to do so.
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danceboy doesn't understand why I bother with patterns. It is his opinion that I would do better without them. I always wind up recalculating anyway, so wouldn't it be easier to start from scratch? It's just that I want this to be easy. I want to press the button and feel the zot travel from my finger up to the roots of my hair. But this button has been disconnected from the lab equipment, and I won't even get a lump of moldy cheese out of it.
(Probably worth noting: I have never, ever managed to knit a sweater entirely from someone else's unaltered pattern with which I was remotely satisfied.)
I have a book, possibly the most thoroughly despised knitting book of all time, which contains a pattern I'd like to use. There are, however, problems.
The pattern is for a tunic-length, fitted, ribbed, turtleneck sweater. With the length stated in the pattern, the sweater will come down to midthigh. This is too long. So there's the first thing I'll need to change.
The sweater starts out narrow - 28 inches at the hip. Do we all see the problem? I know that ribbing stretches, especially in bulky yarn, but I think -10 inches of ease is an optimism that simply cannot be justified. I'm going to have to approach that somehow.
And then. Then. The little pattern schematic that comes with every knitting pattern shows a piece that goes straight from hips to waist and then curves gracefully out towards the bust line. Unfortunately, the pattern instructions do not support the schematic. The pattern is a trapezoid from hip to bust.
Now, remember that thing I said about my hips not being 28 inches around? My hips are the widest part of my body. Therefore, the hip should not be the narrowest part of my sweater. The widest part of the sweater pattern is the bust. I don't want to be obvious about showing that part off, but it seems inherently wrong that the part I'd be happy to emphasize is the part that will be most generously draped.
From here, we turn our attention to the sleeve, and the dratted schematic comes in again, so bear with me. The pattern guage is 3.75 stitches per inch. The pattern instructions say to cast on 32 stitches for the sleeve in size small, 34 in medium, and 36 in large. I do not have to do any math to know that not all of these numbers can result in a sleeve 8 inches in diameter, the way the schematic claims it will be. I'm not even going to start on the sleeve cap. I'm leaving that alone for two reasons: I am halfway through my second drink of the evening, and the sleeve cap schematic appears to be a hallucination that Suss Cousins had sometime in between starting a yarn store and publishing a photo of her husband that looks like Uncle Fester taking a break between shock treatments.
The schematic appears to be quite a nice sweater. It has only the vaguest of relationships to the pattern. The schematic and the pattern are third cousins twice removed, or fifth cousins by marriage or something. I would like to knit the schematic. I will have to abandon the pattern to do so.
danceboy doesn't understand why I bother with patterns. It is his opinion that I would do better without them. I always wind up recalculating anyway, so wouldn't it be easier to start from scratch? It's just that I want this to be easy. I want to press the button and feel the zot travel from my finger up to the roots of my hair. But this button has been disconnected from the lab equipment, and I won't even get a lump of moldy cheese out of it.
