The Knitting Fiend

I love the fit!

My raglan sweater is hand knit from two strands of Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton. I knew it was going to shrink in length, so I designed the pattern to account for that. After I knit it, I tried it on. Even though I knew it was going to shrink, the deep armholes were unsettling.

I threw the sweater in the wash, set the cycle to hot, let it run, and later threw it in the wash to tumble dry. It shrunk at exactly the same rate as the swatch. Perfect fit!

I now have a great sweater to use on cool spring evenings at the ball game. It feels nice and fluffy, but somehow sturdy and indestructible, and I know I’ll use it a lot.

I read the care label for this cotton; Lion Brand says not to bleach. If I spill mustard on this, let me tell you, I’ll bleach it. It only cost $20 to knit; I know cotton is tough. I don’t like mustard stains. And let’s face it, this is dishcloth cotton; my mother in law has been giving her dishcloths some pretty tough work outs for years, and I figure the sweater will survive.

Anyway, I can always test out any cleaning method on the swatch. That’s one of the functions of swatches!

If you want to knit yourself, your husband or your kid, a raglan from the bottom up, visit my take me out to the ball game sweater pattern generator. If you already visited the “Husband Sweater” you’ll notice some additional options. These include functioning toggles for kids sizes, and a toggle to give directions for garter stitch borders, which I used here.

Even more importantly, I added a toggle to use if you know your yarn is going to shrink, like this cotton. The directions will tell you to knit “X” directions, measured while knitting, and then tell you how long that bit will be after you wash and shrink the sweater. That is, it will tell you this if you wash, dry and shrink your swatch and enter those values.

If you knit with cotton, please, please, shrink your swatch and enter both gauge values. Ok?