ease

In knitting, "ease" refers to how a garment fits relative to body measurements. A garment with negative ease will measure smaller in circumference than the wearer's measurements, a garment with positive ease will measure larger in circumference than the wearer's measurements, and a garment with no ease will be about the same. Good patterns usually include notes about ease, how the garment is meant to be worn, how much positive or negative ease is present on the modeled shot, etc. Generally speaking, you need a little negative ease with socks and hat brims so they stay on without sliding around and driving you crazy. This is easy enough to figure out.

But sweaters? Here's where it gets a little tricky. Some sweaters are meant to be fitted, so they are written with negative ease. Some sweaters are meant to be boxy, or worn as outer layers, or made with bulky yarn, and thus have positive ease. Kids' sweaters usually have quite a lot of positive ease because kids need to move around. Plus, kids have a tendency to, you know, grow, so extra room built into a sweater helps keep up with those growth spurts. If you knit yourself a lot of sweaters, you figure out what sweaters look best on you, and much ink has been spilled in books and magazine articles about how to achieve the most flattering fit. Ysolda is particularly good at this, and I especially appreciate her attitude that we shouldn't view different body types as having certain flaws that should be hidden away, but rather attributes that are best accentuated in one way or another.

For myself, I've learned a few things about what works for my body type and what doesn't. I'm pretty small in stature and I'm not particularly curvy (re: 31" chest on a deep inhale). Sweaters with wide or plunging necklines or huge drapey collars or basically anything requiring an ample bosom to support don't look so good on me. I'm also not a fan of cropped anything because that would draw attention to my middle, and as a 33yo woman who has birthed two children, I like my middle safely hidden, thanks. I do like boat necklines and sweaters with length at least down to my hips, or even tunic-length. And when it comes to ease, because I am small, I need sweaters to fit me with little or no positive ease because otherwise I just get swallowed up in the fabric.

Lately I've been thinking about suggested ease and proportions to actual body measurements. It's interesting that patterns with a range of sizes suggest the same ease for everyone, whatever their bust size. But think about it - 4" of positive ease for someone with a 44" bust amounts to less than 10% of ease, while someone with a 30" bust would have roughly 13% ease. (You know what's really lame? I had to google that last one because I had a total brain fart with percentages. I swear my mind is starting to atrophy.) Anyway, that's a big difference from one bust size to another, and it goes the other way, too. 4" of negative ease for a 30" bust is a lot tighter than 4" of negative ease for someone with a 44" bust. This is probably why some patterns suggest a range, like '2-4" positive ease' or '1-3" negative ease'. All this is helpful, useful information, along with notes like "model shown wearing such-and-such size sweater with x inches of positive ease."

Enter my latest couple of projects, Goose and Gemini. Yes, I am selfish. Both of these sweaters are for ME...(assuming they fit, that is.)

Here's my Goose, so far:

I know it's just a blob of knitting, and the picture doesn't show much, but the intriguing thing about this sweater is its construction. You knit from the middle out, graft the seams up the center and down the sides, then pick up stitches around the neck and then the bottom for the ribbing. In other words, I won't really know if this fits me until it's basically done. The smallest size in the pattern is a finished chest circumference of 36". Since I'm not quite 32" around, this is a lot of ease, but I'm going for big comfy sweatshirt here, not flashy and fitted, so I hope it works and doesn't just look dumpy.

Next up, Gemini:

I'm in a bit of a conundrum with this one because the designer suggests a whopping 4" of negative ease! That seems awfully tight for a hand knit sweater, especially since it doesn't feature a stretchy stitch pattern like ribbing or allover lace...but I have to say the modeled shot on Knitty looks smashing and not at all, you know, tarty. As it is, I'll have to shoot for a size between XS and S to achieve the suggested ease, but that shouldn't be too hard since it's a top-down design and the increases are really quite straightforward. I won't know until I'm pretty far into the pattern whether it works or not, and I guess I can't be afraid to rip it out if there's a problem.

I have to say that Ravelry is extremely useful for sussing out these issues, at least with designs popular enough to have been knit by a lot of people. If more than 100 people have knit a particular sweater and they are all happy with the results, no matter what their body type, that design is usually a safe bet. If they all complain that the sweater is too tight, one can make a note and go up a size.

magpie

We did finally make it to Kentucky, though not without delay; we had to leave one day late so Anya could see the doctor to make sure her ears were all right. They weren't, but we got the appropriate meds and were on our way Monday morning.

All in all, it's been a lovely week here. There has been lots of quality time with Oma and Opa. Daniel, especially, has been hanging out with Oma and working very hard on a quilt with her. Here it is on the design wall before assembling:



I'm so impressed with his dedication to this project. It's turning out pretty nice, too. My mom did the piecing for him, but Daniel has had a real kick using her machine to do fancy stitch patterns on many of the squares. When it's all said and done I'll give him a proper FO post!

I knit one plain gray sock, but it's not worth taking a picture of just yet (part of my larger project to write up a basic sock pattern). But I do have yarn to show you! We spent the afternoon in Lexington today. Most of our time was at the Explorium downtown, but we ventured over to Magpie Yarn for a bit so I could have a look-see at the selection.

Magpie, indeed. I mean, seriously guys, the last thing I need is more yarn, but I adore this shop. I can't not go when I'm in town! The owner, Jane, is so very nice and helpful and it's one of the most appealing yarn shops I've visited, ever. She has all the yarn arranged by color, and there is tons of natural light coming in the windows and a couch to sit on and a big table with pattern books in the middle. It just feels good to be in there. And even though I probably shouldn't even have set foot in there, I did, and I didn't leave empty-handed.



The lovely olive green yarn is luxury laceweight with merino, bamboo and bison. It's the same color as my eyes (not entirely green, not quite brown) that I intend to make into a Hunter St Cowl by that crazy knitting lady GlennaC. Because of the yardage I might have to make it a bit smaller than the original design, but that's okay. I also bought some Madelintosh sock in Kentucky blue. Well, it's really called "lapis" but let's be honest here, that is nothing other than Wildcat blue, and even though I don't care a fig about basketball, it's kind of hard to be in the bluegrass this week and NOT NOTICE THAT THE UK MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM WON THE NCAA TOURNAMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 14 YEARS. Seriously, the riots and fires in downtown Lex started before the game even ended. Sheesh. Anyway, I'm not sure if the yarn will be socks or what. Such a vibrant blue might be too lovely for something worn on the feet. What do you guys think?

new bag for anya

I suppose it was an unintentional April Fool's joke that we were leaving for Kentucky today! But not a funny joke, alas. Anya's been under the weather this weekend, so we have delayed departure until tomorrow, hopefully. First we have an appointment with the doctor to make sure her ears aren't infected.

In between packing and worrying, I spent most of my weekend sewing up Anya's messenger bag. It's the same pattern as Daniel's, only she wanted the smaller size. I also used different fabric and better strap hardware.



She likes it! (Poor girl with her raw, red, runny nose.)



Now, a few notes about the process. Since I made one of these before, and it wasn't so long ago, this time everything went much faster! And while the pattern instructions are quite excellent, it certainly helped to know where all the difficult parts of assembly were. I did more hand-basting this time around.



See all the layers you have to sew through? Hand-basting definitely makes a difference here!



Even when you don't have a zillion layers to stitch through, hand-basting helps immensely when you are sewing curves.



One of the fun parts about this bag was installing the strap hardware.



JoAnn's didn't have the right hardware, so I ordered from pacifictrimming.com. Each of these metal pieces was 1.50, and shipping was 1.95, so the whole package was about five bucks, which is quite reasonable if you ask me. Also, my order showed up in the mailbox just a few days after I placed it online, so thumbs up for expedience as well! I had used a parachute clip for Daniel's bag, but these metal adjusters are superior. They are lightweight, easy to use, and not expensive at all. Plus, I feel pretty spiffy for being able to do adjustable straps!



How about a few more pictures?




I did better on the bias tape detail this time (except for the front pocket flaps...should have been more careful there.)



Anya wanted to take a picture of me holding the bag!



Daniel is fascinated by my sewing machine. When I was working on his bag, I taught him how to wind the bobbin, insert the bobbin, and thread the machine. He can do this mostly by himself now. And this weekend, I finally broke down and let him try sewing some lines of stitching on his own. He's very proud of his work:




(I don't know why he has his shirt off. Sometimes he just doesn't want to wear one.)

Daniel is excited about trying out some more projects. I thought we could try sewing a scarf sometime, or, if Oma will allow it, choosing some fabric from her stash to make a small project with his stitched squares, such as a small quilt or a pillow.

I'm a proud mama, I really am, but sometimes I wish my kids would be as interested and enthusiastic about music! That's where my real talents are, after all.