Jumping on the Band Wagon

or rather off of it!

Sometimes, I need to take a short break from knitting.  Usually, it is when a particular is giving me a problem or I'm just tired of knitting on it.  Sure I could pick up one of several that are sitting around, but, I really am trying to finish somethings.  If I am flittin all over and around my knitting, that does not happen.

 When I do take that break, my mind still thinks about knitting.  Recently, I decided to pull out some books and other references that I have been saving about sweaters that look good and fit well.  I took a weekend and perused them and made some notes.

You see, I knit a lot of sweaters for me.  They fit pretty well, because, years ago, I took a 6 week class from Judy Chan at Mosaic Yarn Studio.  She truly helped me with making a sweater that fit and looked good on me. We took measurements and I have used her expertise many times. Judy was in Peoria a couple of years ago and I took a shortened version of the class which for me was a great refresher of the really long class I took with friend Julie over the course of a summer.  Judy gave me the most important advice I have received on sweaters for me....NO DROP Sleeves.  Drop Sleeves are not my friend!!

Of course, a couple of years before that I went to Meg Swansen's Knit Camp where I learned all about EPS, which really helped with the whole gauge thing.

One of the first books I ever bought about knitting was Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English.  When she came out with Sweater Design, of course, I bought it.  At the time, I thought it might be fun to design a sweater.  Even though, I have bought several design books, I still prefer to knit other people's designs. 

Lily Chin has a great article about sweaters in this old Vogue Knitting.  I sure am glad I have an extensive magazine collection at times like these.  Lily, probably was the first person I heard say that we should actually take something out of our closet that we like that also looks good on us and use it's measurements for the basis of  our sweater knitting.

I remember at the time, pulling out a red sweatshirt that I wore the death out of to use for my measurements.  Now that I think about it, the sweatshirt probably didn't look that great on me, but I sure wore the heck out of it!

Lily, however, dealt me a low blow.  Raglans may not be the best for my shape either.  That is so sad, because I adore Knitting Pure and Simple's patterns and a lot of them are raglan sleeves.  Now, I am not so sure I am going to give them up even if Lily says I should.  I may need some more convincing.

 Ah, and there is Sally.  I bought her book sight unseen.  Because it was Sally and I had all of Sally's other books.  Mainly, I bought it for the Fit and Flatter piece, but there is a sweater or two I would like to someday knit from it.

The best piece of advice I got from Sally's book was that I need to draw attention to the half of my body that is slimmer.  Well, at the moment, I guess that would have to be my shoulders, cause anything below the waist is Not!  A lot of the information in Sally's book makes good sense, and I am glad that I spent a few hours reading it again.

The point of this post.  Yes, my sweaters I think fit, because I do a hefty gauge swatch.  I calculate, I make changes to patterns where I need to.  But, if I am really honest, I don't think the sweaters look that great on me.  Sure, they feel good on, because I like the sweater I've knit, and I love the yarn.  But, brutally honest?
I need to take the advice of these reference materials I have, and knit sweaters that I love that look good on me.  Instead of knitting a sweater for the sake of knitting a sweater.

Too often I jump on the band wagon of sweater knitting...that's gonna change real soon.  Stay tuned.