I’m having a lovely day today – and I hope you are, too. There’s nothing on my agenda, so I’m doing a few chores but mostly I’m knitting and looking at emails and browsing Ravelry and reading other blogs and so on. I took a happiness quiz on UPenn’s website and found out that I’m just a bit happier than the average old lady who lives in my zip code, and why shouldn’t I be? I have a whole day to myself to do useless things like take happiness quizzes!
There are so many projects floating around in my head that I wish I were the Hindu goddess Parvati
who has many useful arms and a fabu tiger to boot! I’m working on a top-down fingering-weight dress or tunic (depending on how long my patience lasts) that I’m making up as I go along and that may become a shop pattern if it works out, but I really had to put that aside for a while. I needed to make some progress on something, and was inspired by the receipt of a few new colors of Sol Degradé from Lang. A few years ago many of us made this cute summer pullover:
Called Katy-Did-It Pullover, it was designed by Cathy Montoya for Classic Elite Yarns and is still available for free. (The link will take you to its Ravelry page.) I’m re-making it, because mine has gone to that big where-the-heck-did-it-go place in the sky and because the colors are happy and it’s FAST! Here’s the back:
The colors and the openwork just scream summer, don’t they? It’s made from 4 rectangles with drop shoulders and no shaping, the simplest kind of sweater you can make, and the kind you reach for again and again. Here are a couple of photos from the Poetry catalog (no, I can’t afford anything from this place, but my sister gets their catalog and I go through it and say “I could knit that…I could knit that…” and on and on until she just wants to kill me) that are drop-shoulder style:
Cute, right? Simple. Elegant. And if you are a clothes person, so easy to accessorize and so adaptable to any summer occasion.
Some great drop shoulder patterns:
Donner and Latitude, both by Elizabeth Doherty:
Fisherman’s Cloud by Katrin Schneider:
Bennett Creek by Kate Osborn:
Davis by Pam Allen:
Sonation by Mari Chiba:
and so many, many more.
There are some tricks to getting the look you want and the comfort you expect from this style. Few of us are model-sized so study the pattern’s schematic. (If the pattern doesn’t have a schematic or at least a very detailed list of measurements, you’ll have to do some serious math.)
First, you need to have some body ease. If you look at all the photos above, you notice that the bodies of the sweaters are not clinging to the model. Drop shoulders need to drop, so the body width must be significantly wider than your width.
The sweaters below are too tight. Even though the models are nicely shaped, the buckling in the armpit shows the sweaters were not sized correctly:
Second, you have to notice the fit of the sleeve that the designer has used. Some are quite tight-fitting (Fisherman’s Cloud, above) which tends bring a more tailored look to a drop-shoulder style, some are easy and loose (see the Poetry styles, above) which makes a more casual look. Because there’s usually no armhole shaping, the sleeve diameter can be adjusted to fit your arm and the look you want. This is something you want to decide before you start knitting (and possibly before you buy yarn since adjusting sleeve diameter can use more yarn.)
Third, you should notice the neckline width. Some designers like a very wide neckline, and this may or may not suit you, depending on your shoulder width and how much you like/dislike your shoulder straps showing.
Again this is something that can be adjusted (sometimes it’s easy and sometimes not depending on construction) but should be looked at and decided.
Even the simplest style can be, and often needs to be, customized, and aren’t we lucky to be knitters who can make the sweater of our dreams!!
Just a note: If you have signed up for the Devana Pulse warmer class, it’s this coming Sunday! Those 540 beads need to be threaded onto your yarn before class!
