The Knitting Fiend

Close up.

I have fitting issues with drop sleeves.

On the positive side: drop sleeves are easy to knit, and they are a snap for a beginning designer to design.

Design-wise, you don’t need to know many details about the wearer’s size. Not their shoulder width and if you plan for fold back cuffs, you can rely on a table of standard measurements for most people’s arm lengths.

Knitting-wise, you don’t need to shape the sleeve cap or armhole. This is makes a drop sleeve sweater a good ‘commuter knitting’ project. You can ride in car or on a train, knit mindlessly and not worry about missing the precise shaping locations.

That said: I rarely knit drop sleeves for women. Let’s look at one of the negatives:

Just look at those folds at Colocha’s underarm! Those are always there with a drop sleeve sweater. They may be large folds or small folds, but they are there. “Why?” asks a reader (and asks herself “Why don’t I always notice them?”. (Don’t you like the way I can hear your questions? )

Well, click to compare these two schematics: drop sleeve , fitted sleeve.

The notice the shaping on the fitted sleeve takes some fabric out from the general shoulder-arm area and especially the armpit? (It does other nice things too, but we won’t get into that.) The folds are that extra fabric!

Ok. But we all know drop sleeves look good on most athletic college men and slender men in general; you never notice those folds. That’s because men, especially slender men, have broad shoulders in proportion to their chest size. If you were to compared the schematics for a drop sleeve and fitted sleeve sweater for a slender man, you’d notice the shaping only removes a little bit of fabric. In contrast, everyone notices that plump, busty, or curvy women generally find drop sleeve sweaters unflattering. One reason is the folds under the arm can be enormous. This happens because busty women usually have very small shoulders compared to their chest. All that extra fabric ends up under their arms.

Oh, so, you don’t notice these folds in patterns in your pattern books? Ever notice the models are prancing around with their arms flying in the air? Or over their heads? Guess why?

Anyway, here’s another secret about fashion models: They are never plump, rarely extremely busty, and they often have broad shoulders compared to other women. Translation: Models are very, very skinny. Betcha’ didn’t know that!

Oh, and about Colocha. She’s a doll. She’s built like a fashion model– large shoulders compared to her flat little chest. So, the folds under her arms aren’t very large.

I don’t have a bust, but I do have small shoulders. I’m leaning toward making my sideways knit cardigan with fitted shoulders. Or maybe raglan sleeves.