Your own personal sweater

Earlier this year, the store where I work joined Amy Herzog's CustomFit LYS program, which means that we can set our customers up with a sweater pattern tailored exactly to their personal measurements, knitting gauge, yarn choice, and preferred style. When we announced the program, I still suffered from sweater anxiety, but I got to work right away on my own sweater. Here it is:

CustomFit offers several different choices for each of the elements of the sweater: neckline shape, sleeve length, hem length, edging style, and overall fit. The sweater I made is a close-fit, mid-hip length, scoop neck with elbow-length sleeves and 1x1 ribbing on all the edges. The yarn is Tor DK from Yarn Hollow, which I still squeeze longingly every time I pass it in the aisle.

As a novice sweater knitter, using CustomFit meant I didn't have to worry about whether my gauge was slightly off, or if there was any special tweaking I would know to do if I were more experienced, because it basically guaranteed me a sweater that would fit me. You need to be able to follow knitting instructions, not fear seaming, and know what kinds of garments you like, but those are not such huge hurdles.

CustomFit sweater #2 is still in the mental planning stages. I have a lot of conventional sweater patterns queued, and while it is possible to generate a CustomFit pattern and then add elements from another pattern, that is more adventurous than I want to be right now.

Oh, and did I mention that Amy Herzog herself stopped by our store to kick off our CustomFit program?

CustomFit sweater

WIP Wednesday: My first sweater :O

I'm finally working on my first me-sized sweater! After all my angst and worries, it has so far been... very uneventful (not that I've gotten that far, as you can see). I made and washed my gauge swatch, so I'm reasonably sure that I'm producing something that will more-or-less fit me, which is about the highest I'm aiming for my first attempt.

The pattern is Laura Aylor's Serra. Although the construction is a little unusual, her instructions are very clear, and everything seems to be working out so far. I'm knitting it in Berroco Vintage - a nice yarn to work with, but inexpensive, so that I'm not sinking a major investment into my first sweater.

All of this is an exercise in serenely accepting the truth that my first attempt at anything new will never be my best attempt, as much as that fact annoys me.

Little sweaters

I have yet to knit myself a sweater. This embarrasses me a little, especially since it seems like many knitters jump right into sweaters after they master the basics. Supposedly, I prefer smaller projects like socks and shawls and toys, and I don't wear sweaters that often anyway, and I'm trying to keep my yarn budget under control (ha). These are all somewhat true, but really, I'm scared of gauge. The whole concept. I understand how it works, but as a tight knitter most of the time, the thought of making something sizeable that actually needs to hit precise measurements is a little scary.

So I'm starting slow, with some baby cardigans. I've tried to get gauge on these, but it doesn't matter as much since baby garments are more forgiving, and two of these are shop samples for my LYS (ie, not even for a real kid). Since I'm not angsting about the fit, I've been concentrating on understanding the construction of sweaters, and learning things like I need to go up a needle size for sleeves because try as I might, I can't stop knitting more tightly in the round than back-and-forth.

Baby Sophisticate, a free pattern on Ravelry, was my very first sweater, and also my first shop sample, knit a few weeks after I started working at my LYS (so, no pressure!). It's knit in Berroco Vintage Chunky and I think it's cute, especially with those bunny buttons, but I could see things I wanted to improve.

After that, I made the In Threes baby cardigan for my cousin's little girl who was due in July. Since they live in Texas, I wanted a simple, sleeveless pattern that wouldn't be too warm. I knit this in Universal Yarn's Cotton Supreme, which is soft and squishy. I love this cardigan and I think it turned out adorable, and once again, it owes a lot of that to my LYS's stock of cute buttons.

My second shop sample is the Girl's Best Cardigan pattern by Georgie Hallam. I made a size 5y, so it was a bit more work than a baby sweater, but I enjoyed it. A lot of that is because I felt more confident. But it's also because the pattern and yarn were not ones I picked myself, and probably not something I would have chosen - which means I got the chance to try something very different from my usual approach. It's fun! (Although a million picots are not my idea of fun.)

Next up: a cardigan for me!