We were walking by the canal today, when the sun came out and I had to take off my jacket to cool off because my Snorri is so very, very warm.
“I’m so jealous of your handknitted sweaters”, David said, “and I would like to be as warm as you this winter.” And so we agreed that I am to knit him a sweater, particularly as we are heading to Scandinavia in the midst of winter and last time that happened, Dave nearly froze to death.
I have all the usual concerns about patterns. Dave doesn’t like any of the usual suspects (Cobblestone or Durrow), doesn’t want any cabling or any colourwork .. but he does grudgingly admit to “not minding” the style of Kerouac while not wanting a cardigan. Furthermore, Kerouac is knitted in sport-weight and I have some rather fetching aran-weight in my stash..
However, the real issue is sizing. I think I’m heading for trouble. I measured David and his chest circumference is a whopping 5” less than IK’s standard size S. He likes his clothes to be fitted rather than slouchy, although he’d want to have a t-shirt underneath his sweater.
Questions: Do I try to play with gauge and go down needle-sizes? Do I try to find children’s patterns and hope the largest boy size will fit my partner? Can I take a woman’s pattern and take out waist-shaping/modify neckline or would I get in trouble with the shoulders?
Any helpful hints or tips either regarding pattern or sizing?
Suggestions regarding feeding him more rice pudding or chocolate will be filed under “David’s being silly”.
I think this calls for some Elizabeth Zimmermann. One of her simple in-the-round sweaters (maybe with a hybrid or shirtcollar neck?) might be just the thing for a picky man. You can use whatever gauge you like (and aran weight would probably be better for winter in Scandanavia) but you can still please David. I have found knitting for men to be a challenge – they generally like things as simple as possible, in blue or brown if you please. Good luck!
Meg, I am actually considering the seamless hybrid, although it will be a slog to knit until I get to the shoulder shaping. Another option is a homebrewed raglan top-down which he’d be able to try on along the way.
Hmmm..
Hi :-)
I know you have a great knack for adaptation and modification but I could lend you “Sweater Design in Plain English” by Maggie Righetti if you like, it might help with the number crunching. Not exactly hot-off-the-press, but still contains some good information about tension/shaping/yardage etc.
I think maybe a home-grown number would be best here rather than playing with women’s/boys’ patterns but I’m sure all will turn out well with your good eye for what’s working and what’s not.
x K
This might sound really naive – it’s what I did with my own WIP jumper which might never end up fitting me – but can’t you just do some maths on it? Say… if the pattern says X stitches for a Y inches wide chest, but you need Z inches… some simple math will tell you how many stitches you would need (roughly) for Z inches? Then just take the closest number that’ll fit the pattern.
That’s how my mum does it all the time, anyway *G*.
My DH is also svelte and prefers fitted clothes (although man-fitted is a lot looser than woman-fitted, I learned that lesson the hard way), and doesn’t like any of the “stuff (non-st st portions) on the available man-sweater patterns. So I’ve followed the seamless sweater instructions from Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the top with good results, with two changes: 1) V-neck fashions have changed, and now the V’s aren’t so deep anymore; 2) waist decreases from under the arm to where the real waist is (but to the hip circumference, not waist circumference), then straight down to the bottom, rather than decrease gradually all the way down to the hip as she suggests.
Can’t wait to see what you do!
@Kathleen: that might be very helpful! Thank you sweetie. I miss seeing you at knitting nights xx
@Franzi: you are absolutely right and that I just need to do number crunching. I think it’s partly the idea of knitting something *smaller* than what I’d wear. It feels very wrong!
@yoel: that is actually incredibly helpful! I am still playing around with ideas but the waist decreasing sounds really interesting.
I’ll keep you all posted. I have, ahem, a few projects to finish before I can CO for this one.
Knitty’s Avast, or something based on it? The sizing goes down to very small for that.
It would be quite a slog to get through all the plain knitting, but you could add some interest with a cable or a knit/purl pattern that would still be very masculine, but relieve the boredom. Maybe just a panel up the front or down the sleeves?