Frankensleeve!!
Long, long ago, in a state far, far away, a knitter made a promise. She promised to knit her best friend a sweater. "No pattern? No problem!" she exclaimed, as she was overcome by one of those passing waves of unquestioning belief in her own "mad skillz" and was giddy with the fact that she and the aforementioned friend were actually in the same room at the time. Thus was the conception of The Cardigan. In the time that has since passed, the knitter has come to acknowledge some of her shortcomings; most importantly, when she took the measurements from the existing sweater she was to base this one upon, she left out a few, like length of side seam, armscye depth, you know, nothing major (hah!). Eventually, however, The Cardigan began to slowly emerge from the skeins of black yarn. The knitter considered asking her friend if she wouldn't prefer A Really Nice Vest instead of The Cardigan when she was forced to contend with...
Frankensleeve!!!
If, to quote Maggie Righetti "Buttonholes are Bastards," then sleeve caps are surely some crazy-a$$ biatches. Attempt #1, of which no photographic evidence exists, resembled the tip of a sharpened pencil. So pointy that if you touched it, it might just hurt you. Pointy.
Attempt #2: The true Frankensleeve.
Enter the angry villagers armed with torches, pitchforks, and, oddly enough, knitters' graph paper. As the battering ram threatened to take down not just the door, but the entire house, some quick calculations and sketchy drafting were done to produce this:
At this point, all sleeves are looking to the knitter like mutated monstrosities, so, kind reader, have we put the monster to rest? (I'm pretty sure these will fit the armscye, unless something truly horrible has gone awry.)
Will The Cardigan be fit to present to Skippy upon her visit in mid May?
Will the knitter cease refferring to herself in the third person (God, I hope so!)?
Only time will tell...
BTW: Spell check just suggested I replace "knitter" with "janitor." Is someone out there trying to tell me something?
posted by Bitterknitter at 11:58 AM
4 Comments:
This is why I fear set in sleeves like the bubonic plague. I don't think I would ever get them right. Though yours will undoubtedly fit! :)
Thanks too for the tip about Kiri. I'm thinking about switching my sampler-stole-warmup project.
I love set-in sleeves, but I hate calculating them! BTW - there are some great articles on sleeve cap shaping on Knitty. They helped me out immensely when I was duking it out with the Knitter's sweater...
BTW - I've heard from a few different designers that they do sleeve caps by knitting, frogging and reknitting until they hit on the magic combination...
Yikes on the Frankensleeve! I did sleeve caps on my cardi, but I only had to knit them with the blind faith that the poor designer had already done all the blood, sweat and tears work with the calculations. I can't imagine having to do all those calculations! I give you so much credit- the cardigan is looking wonderful and is such a labor of love. Thank you so much for all your support and good wishes this past week- it really meant a lot to me. Hope all is well with you... take care, Lisa! :-)
Hey, new reader here - I second the suggestion about the great article on last month's knitty.com all about calculating the correct sleeve cap for your armscye - it involves lot's of maths, but I know from experience that sitting down and doing it will make it fit like a glove. And it'll even make sense! :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home