The Knitting Fiend

Recent thread introduced by Wheat Carr on the knitlist. He (or she) asks:

If You Ruled The World,

HOW and WHAT would you like to see included in patterns and if you have the time or inclination, why are these features important to you.

Many people answered. ¹ I guess I could too, but this question is difficult for me. It assumes I want to follow a pattern. I haven’t followed a pattern to the letter since 1982! What do I care what publishers and designers include in the pattern?

There are so many cute published pattern, so why do I chart my own? Well, let me tell you my experiences.

In 1979 when I knit the third sweater I ever knit– as a present for a boyfriend– the length of sleeve specified in the pattern reached his knees. Boy was that a funny looking Christmas surprise!

I’ll admit, the boyfriend in question was somewhat short (5′7″). One might suggest that a taller guy’s arms would have been the “correct” length to fit the sweater. But, I ask you this: If that was the problem, why was the body of the sweater the right length for him?

Clearly, the pattern suggested overly long sleeves on a normal length body.

After that experience, I found some books at the library and taught myself to chart my own stuff. I made tons of stuff and never had any fitting problems. Still, the siren song of published patterns called. That’s when I learned expensive published patterns are sometimes flawed in even worse ways.

Around 1991, I fell in love with a pattern published by a well known designer. The photograph of the sweater was gorgeous. It was a cardigan with a beautiful lace motif repeated all around. The pattern was printed on nice glossy card stock. A copy editor had clearly gone over the text to make sure the designer never used “stockinette” in one spot and “stockinet” in another. Everything looked so professional.

I broke down and purchased the pattern because I figured it was worth the money to avoid charting the lace pattern out in my own size.

Great, right? Wrong!

It turned out, to fit in the lace motif into pattern for my size whic required a 38″ wide chest dimension, the designer had decided there would be a total of 4 repeats of the lace motifs across the front and 5 motifs across the back. Now, I know I’m flat chested, but even I can’t wear a sweater that measures 21.1″ across the back and 17″ across the front. Examining the pattern, I saw that some of the sizes had wider backs, and some wider fronts, and some, but not very many, had matching front and back widths.

I don’t know what you think, but I don’t think making the dramatically different front and back widths weren’t intentional “design features”; it was just a screwed up!

Luckily, I detected the problem before I cast on; I designed myself an entirely different sweater with leaf motifs on either side of the cardigan split. I loved it. But I’d just wasted my money on the pattern for the lace sweater.

In between, I learned lots of published patterns don’t fit the wearer in slightly less dramatic ways. The sleeves are tight or loose. The neck is too deep or too shallow. Now that I can chart patterns, I always tweak. Always.

But, I can only tweak because I learned enough about designing sweaters to know how to fix patterns. To learn, all you need to do is design one sweater, knit it and see it works out!

So, if I ruled the world, everyone intermediate knitter would learn to design a simple sweater. After that, if they don’t like designing, they can just go back to following patterns. But, I suspect many won’t go back to following patterns word for word, not once they’ve learned it’s not that hard to turn a V neck into a turtleneck!

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End notes:
1. If you are interested in what people want to see in published patterns, join the knitlist and read these: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.