Monday, March 17, 2008

How to Save a Tight Sweater? Really?

Just in case you missed today's "How to of the Day"- I thought I'd share the fun.



Hmm, I don't think the sample cardigans were made using their technique. Their purple sample laid out flat would not be the easiest to split that central panel of patterned sts evenly in half, at least not with much chance of it looking as sleek as the next picture of a purplish (on my screen anyway) cardigan with 2 very nice edges, edges that I can't imagine were going down the center of a pullover. I have a sneaking suspicion that the first pic on the "Adding a Closing Mechanism" section has always been a cardigan. Um, same goes for the second one- look at those edge sts, those were not running down the center of a plain pullover. The third pic is believable, unfortunately frumpy, but believable. The next pic, is, um, well, doesn't that look an awful lot like Lolly? (before haircut)

My favorite part of this silly How to is the warning (scroll down a bit)- "Don't force a tight sweater to fit you and don't force the cardigan version to fit either - this simply creates a very unflattering look and does your figure great disservice. If the sweater is so badly shrunken that it looks best for a child, give it to a child or a local charity clothing service. Sometimes we just have to move on. " He he, some good advice.

All 6 of my kiddos have succombed to some viral crud, fevers, headaches, coughing, etc... so we won't be out and about at all today, which might mean lots of knitting time, or it could end up meaning lots of cooking (soup) and cleaning time, as my cleaning crew is all contagious at the moment...

Happy knitting-

ali

6 Comments:

Blogger The A.D.D. Knitter said...

Yes, but it's SO HARD to know when to move on!!

3/17/2008 4:31 PM  
Blogger Jean said...

Sorry about the viral crud. I agree completely that lots of those sweaters were already cardigans, not made into them from shrunken sweaters.

3/17/2008 5:38 PM  
Blogger a friend to knit with said...

oh, i am so sorry about your family being sick! ahhhhh. it is so bad.
yep. good advise sometimes i just need to move on.

3/17/2008 10:06 PM  
Blogger Dove Knits said...

Save a tight sweater by turning it into a bag, or, if it's wool, into an oven mitt. Because if it's tight from being felted, it'll feel like you're wearing Kevlar.

Hope all the kids feel better soon.

3/18/2008 2:05 PM  
Blogger Elaine said...

Sorry to hear about the sick kids.

The purple slipover is definitely not the same sweater as the purple cardigan, but I guess we were supposed to think it was.

Now, that being said, my mother turned slipovers into cardigans or jackets all the time when I was young - not because they were too tight, because they were more fashionable.

She would sew 2 double rows of machine stitching down the center and then cut between them (eek!) She would then sew grosgrain ribbon to each side and turn it under to keep the edges nice and flat. That is actually what steeking is and is a common Scandinavian technique, I think. They always turned out looking like that was the way they were knit - perfect.

3/20/2008 10:56 AM  
Blogger Traci said...

too bad my honey doesn't knit, maybe he could figure out how to save the new sweater he put in the dryer...oops!
(yes, we had a lesson on washing knitwear after that! i went easy on him 'cause hey, he does the laundry, i'm not complaining!)
:)

3/26/2008 12:31 PM  

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