Thursday, July 23, 2009
DUCK!!! Bombshell!
If you haven’t noticed, I get bored easy.
It’s a challenge with my wardrobe - I don’t have the money to replace everything once I get tired of it, so I go for a lot of separates that I can mix-and-match. I also look for pieces that are convertible, to break it up a little.
This is also a challenge with my knitting - usually by the time I finish working on something, I hardly want to ever see it again, let alone wear it! But it keeps me looking for versatile pieces that will be super-flattering, slide right in with the rest of my clothes, and are captivatingly “knitterly,” as I like to call it.
So, bearing this in mind, I’ve had this idea in my head for a while now - a simple, flattering pullover in a light color, with different collar-and-cuffs I could button off-’n’-on according to whim and trend.
Enter the Bombshell. This is from Big Girl Knits, with some mods, of course. I omitted the ribbing around the waist (too bulky, breaks up the line, and not reliably fitted in the yarn I was using) and replaced it with more significant waist-shaping. I added sleeves, and worked them straight down with no shaping, to make them full (and balance out my volume). And I added bust-darts - copious bust-darts. (hey, when ya got G-cups, ya gotta make accommodations.) It was an easy top-down knit - after so much technical editing experience with knitty, Jillian and Amy really know how to spell it out. Plus, all that stockinette-stitch provided an excellent canvas for the bust-dart mods.
So, do you wanna hear about the bust-darts? If you’re familiar with my tit-torial, you can easily see the HBDs (horizontal bust-darts - the “short-rows”) and the lower-VBDs (vertical bust-darts - the shaping below the bust - decreases, since this was top-down).
But can you find the diagonally-slanting VBDs? There’s one small one above, slanting from the armscye, of gradual increases to add a little extra boob-room that wouldn’t pucker the raglan line or be noticeable next to the neckline. And there is a small one below, of gradual decreases slanting away from the bust-point, that provides faster shaping than just the decreases of the single lower-VBD can provide.
Of course not every garment needs such meticulous shaping. But every “big girl” knows how knits can get pulled and pushed out of shape, the perfect columns and rows of stitches distorted and bunched. One of the things with which I am most enamored about hand-knitting is the way one can create a covering for a three-dimensional topography out of a one-dimensional object. I just love being able to create a knitted fabric that smoothly and flowingly conforms to an undulating expanse. (sounds sexy, doesn’t it? well, it turns me on.)
The bust-darts may have gone fine, but I had a few other bumps in the road. I finished the HBDs and thought I’d take a break to work the neckband, so I could feel motivated that it was looking like an actual garment and to get the “full effect” when trying it on. I discovered that once the neckband was added, it brought the neckline up to a most unflattering height. The whole point of making a plunging neckline work to a big girl’s advantage is that it plunges, right? It makes those big saggy things look a little more in proportion. Well, this one sat up around “soccer-mom” territory and just made them look matronly.
I frogged the neckband and considered the task of frogging back to the neckline-join. It would mean tearing out all the bust-darts I’d worked to that point. I don’t mind telling you that I got mighty lazy and simply snipped that friggin’ neckline, tying off (yes! in knots! I know - blasphemy!) each row, until it was about two inches lower. A quick re-work-up of the neckband and a trying-on revealed success. Flattering neckline achieved!
Did I consider that saving some time now usually means adding extra work later? I did not. Look at this Cthulu-styled mess on the inside that I now had to weave in:
sometimes, I just suck.
But one decision I am quite proud of - using a completely different yarn in the same color for the edge-bands. The body is done in Knit Picks Main Line (sadly, discontinued - link goes to ravelry) in silver sage, while the edgings are worked in Knit Picks Shine Sport, also in silver sage. The Main Line is deliciously matte and cuddly like cotton-balls, while the Shine Sport in seed-stitch looks pearly and glowing. I love the subtle juxtaposition.
Remember those collar-and-cuffs I mentioned? I plan on sewing small flat buttons on the inside of the neckband and wristbands, then working the collar-and-cuffs separately with a matching edge-band in the Shine Sport that has buttonholes that correspond to the underlying buttons on the sweater. I’ll be doing one set in Knit Picks Twirl, a long-discontinued lumpy-bumpy super-bulky, in a deep dark brown called “woods,” that will perfectly mimic a classic little Persian lamb spread-collar. And another in Knit Picks Quarry (more recently discontinued), a fluffy boucle in “empress green” to match the silver sage color, in a huuuuuge floaty cowl. And a third set, all in the silver sage Shine Sport (say that five times fast!), in a drapey ruffle edging-stitch.
This sweater (in the photo above that I’ve mentally captioned “My Left Breast”) was recently featured in an article written from the Bust-Dart Tit-torial and published in Yarn Forward Magazine (Issues #15 & 16). Be sure to check it out!
