Friday Knitting Blog (04/22/2011)

Happy Earth Day! As you can see, good progress has been made on the sweater in the last week. As of now, both sleeves and the left front have been completed, and I have a few inches done on the right front. Would have been more but Bones and 30 Rock were TV that I wanted to watch and not just listen to last night. 

The goal for the coming week on this project is to finish the right front and start on the back. Also to stop worrying that I'm going to run out of yarn. That's not actually going to happen. 

For the knitters, I saw a few project pictures on Ravelry where the sweater was made per the pattern measurements, and on a woman with actual breasts (AKA larger than an A+ cup), this can result in the babydoll shaping/empire waistline to hit right smack across the nipples. This is to be avoided at all costs; nobody looks good with a seam there. Also the sweater per the pattern instructions is just about waist length, which is also not very flattering except on the really tiny. Therefore, I added 2 inches to the stockinette below the ribbing which breaks up the stockinette and the lace sections, and I also added 2 inches to the lace section before starting the armhole shaping. Holding it up against me, it seems like I added enough length to make that line of ribbing fall where I want it to.  And that's why I did the fronts before the back, although pattern instructions almost always have you make the back of a sweater in pieces first. I needed to be sure that the front of the sweater would fall correctly, and you can't figure that out by knitting the back. After all, like most women, I carry my breasts ventrally and not dorsally. That's one of the things I really love about knitting; it's usually possible if not always easy (although in this case it was pretty easy) to modify a pattern you like to make it fit your body and your life. 

All for now.