The Knitting Fiend

Knit side.

Purl side.

Here are both sides of the broken rib stitch knit in Cascade 200 used double stranded. The body of Jim’s sweater is about 11″ long now.

Remember my cheesy brilliant yarn requirement theory? I compared theory predictions to the amount of yarn I used to knit my mirror vest and mirror sweater; the theory worked pretty well for stockinette.

According to the theory, the length of yarn required for a sweater knit in stockinette can be found using:

“yards required for a sweater knit in stockinette” = 1.02 * π * D * N

where D is the normalized stitch diameter, (which I calculate based on the stitch and row gauge) and N is the number of stitches in the sweater. The 1.02 is a correction factor based on two samples knit in stockinette.

I’ve tested this theory extensively only twice for stockinette; use it with caution.

Ok, you probably won’t use it unless you use my generators. After all, the theory is only useful if you know the number of stitches in the sweater. Who wants to calculate that? Luckily, it’s easy to code my generator to do that, and I’m starting to add the predictions to the sweater patterns.

Here is a warning though: I expect textured stitches to require more yarn per stitch than stockinette. However, I don’t know how much more without knitting up a sample. Here’s what I’m doing to find out: After I coded the raglan hand knitting directions, used the guess method to buy my yarn, and began knitting the sweater, I added a yarn estimator to the hand knit raglan generator. While knitting, I noted the row where I ran out of my first skein of yarn.

Current conclusion: The broken rib stitch seems to use 12% more yarn per stitch than stockinette. In math geek terms, I’m finding:

“yards required for a sweater knit in broken rib” = 1.12 * [1.02 * π * D * N ]

I plan to add a pull down menu to the generator. It will have two options to use when estimating yarn requirements: “broken rib” and “stockinette”. Visitors will be able to obtain yardage estimates for the raglan knit with those particular stitch patterns. People who substitute other stitches will have to live dangerously.

On a more practical note, I will need 900 meters for Jim’s sweater. I bought 770 yards at Knitche!, in Downers Grove, three days ago. They had plenty more on the shelf, so I hope I’ll be ok. Anyway, they have yummy pastries; guess what I’ll have for breakfast?

Lucia