Fiber Fool

Everything that needs out the door before Christmas is out the door. I have nothing big on the horizon, but I have a ton of outstanding proposals. Despite the fact that my mom has requested her own pair of Guided By Love (only 28 more sales to reach $1500 and 1 week to do it in) and a Mitered Diamond Bag (which I know she won’t use until I engineer a lining with many distinctive pockets) I decided to pick back up Wisteria. I lost my mind when I decided it would make a fantastic Christmas sweater and that I should finish it before then so I can wear it on Christmas day.

I cast it on almost as soon as my February Lady Sweater was off the needles. But after only a day or two some yarn for designs with deadlines arrived and I needed to set it aside. I picked it back up about a week ago now I think. I knit the entire second chart and up to 1 inch after the armholes since then. Not too bad considering how large those later yoke rows were! 300+ sts!

I did have a sizing conundrum. I land smack dab between the two largest sizes. The second largest is a tad scant on ease for a sweater of this style, but the largest would look like a paper sack on me. So, I opted for the second largest size and I’m going to add some short-row shaping in the bust area to give me just a tad more wiggle room. One problem with that is there is little info out there about putting in short-row shaping into a top-down sweater. Some say you do it at the same spot and knit it normally with the longest of the short-rows first and others say you knit the short rows in reverse with the shorter short rows first. I’m thinking the optimum placement of the short rows has the shortest of the short rows at the maximum chest circumference. So I’m going to start my short rows at my apex and knit them with the shortest short rows first and pick up the previous wrap on my way to the next stitch that needs wrapped.

I’m also struggling with how deep to make my short rows. I’m C cup, so consulting some locations I should do ~1-1.5 inch depth. But if I follow the measuring scheme at Knotions I need 2 inches and if I follow the instructions in Big Girl Knits I need 2.5 inches! Righetti says to not exceed 2 inches (even for big busts). Certainly a C cup is ample, but not a *big* bust. I’m thinking the average of 1.75 inches?? Anyone care to ring in with their experience? I seem to be mostly surrounded by small chested knitters or those who don’t knit sweaters or haven’t attempted to modify patterns.

This being my first time putting short rows into a top-down sweater I’m not going to be a fool. I have put in a life line so I can easily rip it out and redo should I decide it is needed. Since I was running a line anyway, I also decided it was time to try on the yoke. I couldn’t resist. It also allowed me to double check that I’m at the right point to start the short rows (and I am, at least for where I think it should start). I learned something else when I put it on - I should have opted to go for the short neck modification. But everyone was going on about how it wasn’t that high of a neck so I did it as written. It’ll certainly be a nice warm sweater with the higher neck and I’m always in need of warmer sweaters. I’m always cold in the winter and that exacerbates some of my health issues and it is amazing what a difference a neck warmer makes. So I’ll just chalk it up to being better for my health to have the higher neck on my sweater :-)

Time to go make the first (and I hope only) stab at my short rows while taking in some holiday movie viewing!