question
Has anyone ever knit a sweater using the methods in the book The Sweater Workshop? The book is based on Elizabeth Zimmermans original percentage system. I’ve been sitting in on the class going on here at the store. I’m one (out of 6) balls into my sweater and I’m getting a little worried about the fit. So I’m wondering if I’m just being nervous because I’m straying from the comfortable top down sweater or if I should be concerned?
The other concerns I have about the system is that you cast on your target number (gauge x inches around) less 10% for the ribbing. After you complete the ribbing, you increase up to your target number. I’m not doing ribbing, I did a folded hem, but I’m worried about the others who are knitting it. I’m worried that it will balloon out at just the wrong place. The book doesn’t account for any other waist shaping, so I’m also adding that in for myself as well.
I plan to work a cable into my raglan shaping too. This has me feeling tenative because the one I’m looking at has yarn overs on either side of the cables. Hmmm… maybe I just need to knit up a test swatch to see how it will work out.
Thoughts?
Category: daily 2 comments »
October 21st, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I’ve made that sweater before. I thought it worked out just fine, although I had some problems with sleeve length, but that may have been my own fault. I may have added an extra inch or so to make the sweater wear longer on my son.
The ten percent difference gave the bottom a little extra, what’s the word?, shape?, I guess. It helped the ribbing to hold in the bottom better instead of having the bottom of the sweater just hang there.
If I have any advice to give on the EPS sweater, it would be to read all the directions for this sweater in all of the books EZ wrote. They don’t all deviate a great deal from one another, but I found that Knitting Without Tears and Knitters Almanac both had different tips included in knitting the sweater. It’s the same basic sweater, but she seems to have tweaked it differently in each book. It may help give you a fuller picture of what is happening as you knit it. It’s also take a glance at The Opinionated Knitter to see if Meg Swansen added anything as well. It won’t be terribly time consuming to do this and it might help. It helped me when it came to working out the neck band. I had a tricky time deciphering the directions and needed to seek help at a LYS.
Anyway, good luck! I enjoyed making this sweater quite a bit, in the end.
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Have you been to the Zimmermania KAL? Lots of people knitting EZ’s sweaters there. I just finished one, and I started with the total 100% because I don’t like the sweater to pull in at the bottom. You can easily add cables to the raglan, but I’d use kfb inc. instead of yarnovers, myself.
If you have any questions, feel free to email me!