Saturday, October 30, 2010

Celtic Critter Cardigan Retraction

My brilliant discovery the other day might not have been so brilliant after all.

The pajama top measured out to the same dimensions for which I was already aiming.

Well, except the pajama top has a 40 inch bust and I'm after a 35 inch, but close enough.

Of course, the sweatshirt was like 46 inches so the the pajama top was considerably smaller.

I guess the positive aspect would be that I have confirmation of how I want the cardigan to fit. If I can get the ease on the sweater to match the ease I want then I should be happy with the fit.

Hem Test
The lifeline, however, proved fruitful and informative.

Last night I transferred what I've knit over to a spare ball of yarn.

The dang thing measured out to around 50 inches!

I say "around" because it was also curving downward, which made it a little hard to measure.

I'm pretty sure the downward curve is being caused by the flare because of the increases at the bottom of the cable. I had wondered what the expansion in stitches would do to the fabric, but I hadn't figured on that.

So I have to reduce the number of stitches in the pattern repeat to reduce the circumference. But to attempt to control the flare and curve I think I'll figure out how many stitches I'll have after increasing for the cables, cast on that number, then decrease before I have to work the cable increases.

Just to make things more complicated.

To make it easier on myself, I think I'll do the first few rows in garter stitch instead of seed stitch.

Ok, time to go do some math. This pattern won't design itself while I'm playing on the computer.

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