Say Hello to Written in the Stars

This hat is proof that inspiration can come from literally anywhere. I never thought that I would be inspired by something as mundane as a hospital window screen but here we are. I spent so much time staring at stars of varying sizes and shapes that my mind turned them into a chart.

I’m really please with how this turned out. My ten year old claimed the sample almost as soon as I finished it. I’m considering it high praise, but at the same time—how does he nearly have an adult sized head?!?!

Written in the Stars is a stranded knitting pattern for heavy fingering/sport weight yarn. It has one size (Adult, although see the above mentioned note about it fitting my ten year old). The sample uses Swan’s Island All American Sport.

My testers came up with some really beautiful versions in different color schemes. If you want to check them out under the hashtag #Writteninthestarshat on Instagram.

Is Row Gauge Important?

“Gauge matters.”  “You need to swatch.” 

I’m sure you’ve heard these things before, and likely more than once.  You’ve probably even heard the cautionary tale of someone painstakingly knitting the perfect sweater for hours on end only to discover it doesn’t come close to fitting because, you guessed it: their gauge was way off. 

Usually when people talk about gauge, they focus on the stitch count—that is how many stitches are in each 4” or 10 cm of fabric.  This is with good reason.  The existence of one more measly stitch over every 4” / 10 cm is enough add inches to the width of your finished garment.

But today I want to talk about row/round gauge, or how many rows/rounds that you have over 4” / 10 cm.  This gets less attention, and often people will tell you to ignore it completely. Sometimes, it might be perfectly fine to just knit until you reach your desired length.  But sometimes ignoring it will destroy your project.

There are three big reasons that row gauge matters: it affects yarn estimates, patterning, and shaping.     

Yardage Estimates

Yardage requirements provided in patterns are not created out of thin air. The number of rows knit is factored in when figuring out how much yarn you need for that project.  If you are knitting 10 rows for every 5 rows that exist in the sample of a pattern, you are going to end up using roughly 50% more yarn than the pattern told you to buy.  If you are at all worried about running out of yarn, pay attention to your row gauge.

Patterning

In cabled projects like my Beckett Ridge Cardigan, working more or fewer rows per inch than instructed will either cause the cables to either compress or elongate.

If you are working on a project with a pattern, colorwork, or cable, be aware that the number of rows you knit will affect the way your pattern turns out.  What might look cute in the sample photo could easily end up distorted (and possibly significantly so) if your row gauge doesn’t match that used for the sample. 

Shaping

Row gauge affects anything with shaping.  Sometimes this is a bigger deal than others.  If you are knitting a set-in sleeve with instructions that say something along the lines of “continue as established until armhole measures x”/x cm”, you are probably going to be fine.  But if you are knitting a raglan sleeve and your gauge is off, you can easily end up with an armhole that does not come close to fitting and never will.

In a yoked sweater like this Parson’s Green, working too few or to many rounds per inch will change the depth of the yoke—which determines how far down your armhole extends. It could make for one very uncomfortable sweater.

Row gauge is also going to affect any waist shaping and any decreases at the arm.  If you’re instructed to decrease every 5th round of a sleeve and you’re knitting one more round than called for, one of two things will happen: you are either going to end up with too long of a sleeve or you will have more stitches than you need at the wrist.  Aside from the yardage and patterning considerations listed above, it’s not a huge deal and you can work around it.  Be sure to take into consideration the difference in row gauge and adjust the decrease frequency accordingly.

Stellan Tee Dress Hack

Two and a half years ago I moved with zero notice.  We were out of the country on a holiday in Oman. While there the situation back in Ethiopia rapidly deteriorated to the point that we were told not to come back.  Several months later we were given the go ahead to return, but by that point the kids were happy and adjusted in a new school so we made the decision for me and them to stay where we were while my husband returned to finish out his contract.

That is a very abbreviated explanation for why I have been living without 95% of both my wardrobe and yarn and fabric stashes for more than two years (and two moves).  Fortunately, out household goods shipment arrived at our new home Brazil at the end of December.  I must say that it has been very nice to have access to my full wardrobe again.

It didn’t take long to realize that almost of my t-shirts have holes in them and the jersey dresses that I own are almost all from my pre-kid days when I liked my clothes to be tighter and are now uncomfortably snug around my stomach.  So why not use one pattern to fill both gaps in my wardrobe?

I made a few t-shirts while we were living in Addis, but I have never kept copious notes for my future self to refer to and surprise of all surprises, after three years I don’t remember what I did.  Even though I’ve made the pattern before I was essentially working from scratch.

To prevent that from happening in the future I have decided to take project notes and leave them here for both myself and anyone else who might find them useful.

I wanted the t-shirt dress to have a curved hem, so I grabbed the Stellan Pattern from French Navy.  From looking at my old traced pattern pieces I knew that I had previously made an XS, and really liked the way it fit as a t-shirt.  But I wanted the dress to be a bit more oversized and not cling to my body so I decided to go with the S and make a t-shirt first to see if that would be enough ease for the dress.

[NOTE: After looking at French Navy’s website it appears that the Stellan Pattern has been updated to expand its size range since I downloaded and printed the pattern.  It seems that the measurements have changed slightly in the process.  The XS had a 40” fitted bust measurement and was recommend for someone with a 34” bust.  The S had a 41.3” finished bust measurement and was recommended for someone with a 35” bust.  My bust measurement is 34.5”.  In the new sizing this would be somewhere in between a C (with a 39.3” finished bust size suggested for someone with a 34.5” bust) and a D (41” finished bust suggested for someone with a 36.5” bust measurement).]

I was very happy with the fit of the test t-shirt.  My hips are the same size as my chest so in theory anything that fits over one should fit over the other.  My original plan was to just extend the pattern 12” from the lengthen/shorten line. But I really didn’t want the dress to cling to my hips though and decided to err on the side of caution by sizing the bottom portion of the pattern up to an M. Those are the only two alterations made to turn the Stellan Tee into a dress. 

I am so very pleased with how this turned out.  The fabric is on the heavier side.  Embarrassingly, it took me twenty minutes of trying to determine which was the right side of the fabric to work out that it was, in fact, double knit.  Given that it was 11:00 at night and the lighting was bad I will cut myself a break on that.  But the extra structure in the fabric combined with sizing up helped me pull off exactly what I was looking for here.

And while I was sewing the dress I cut out and sewed another tee for good measure (I did mention that my t-shirt all have holes in them, right?). 

Fit Tutorial: Adjusting for Biceps in a drop sleeve

One very common fit adjustment that needs to be made in knit sweaters is to the area around your bicep. This tutorial is specifically for altering the upper arm circumference in a knit sweater with drop sleeves. Details for doing it with on sleeve types will be coming in future posts.

What is a drop sleeve? Drop sleeves have no or minimal armhole shaping so that the shoulder of the sweater hangs down over the top of the arm. If you’re knitting from the bottom up you’re essentially knitting two rectangles, joining them at the sides, and adding sleeves. For example, Knife Grinder’s Daughter, Worsted Knife Grinder’s Daughter, Down Home, and Hamiltonian all have drop sleeves. If you are trying to adjust the bicep on one of those you are in the right place.

Adjusting the upper arm circumference on a drop sleeve sweater is a relatively simple thing to do. First measure the circumference of your bicep so you know how big you need the sleeve to be. Then add in ease. I usually add 1.5-2” (4-5cm) positive ease to the bicep area in my close fitting sweaters. This is by no means a hard and fast rule, just a matter of personal preference. If the sleeve on your sweater is meant to be looser fitting to begin with definitely add more.

For example, let’s say you have a 14” (36 cm) bicep and you want to add 2” (5 cm) of ease to it. Your sweater’s new upper arm circumference would be 16” (41 cm).

Drop sleeves begin partially down the arm.

See how the body of the sweater extends past the shoulder and down the arm? It means that your armhole depth and upper arm circumference are closely linked. In order to (easily) change the circumference of the upper arm you must also change the depth of your armhole.

It might sound complicated but the math is simple. Your desired upper arm circumference is twice your new armhole depth. In our example, with a desired 16” (41 cm) upper arm circumference, the new armhole depth will be 8” (20.5 cm).

Add or subtract the difference between your desired armhole depth and what the pattern calls for above the armhole division and below any neck shaping that might happen in the pattern.

Unless you also want to change the overall length of the sweater, you will need to account for the different armhole depth in the body of the sweater below the underarms too. If your new armhole is shorter than what is called for in the pattern, add the difference in length to the body of the sweater below the armhole division. If the new armhole depth is longer than what is called for, subtract the difference from the body.

Figuring out how many stitches to pick up for you your sleeve is as simple as multiplying your new upper arm circumference by your row gauge and rounding to the nearest whole number. If your sleeve is patterned like in Down Home, don’t forget to tweak the final number of stitches so that it equals a multiple of however many stitches are used in the stitch pattern on your sleeve.

There you have it—an easy bicep adjustment for drop sleeves.

Reinforcing a Knit Button Band on a Cardigan

The idea behind reinforcing a button band is to keep the buttons from pulling the stitches of your sweater out of place or causing the band itself it to sag. It’s not always necessary. In fact, often it’s not necessary at all, especially if the buttons you are using are small and light. That being said, I always reinforce my button bands for a couple reasons:

1. If I’m investing the time and energy necessary to knit a cardigan I’m not going to be happy if something goes awry with my button band. I’d rather spend an extra couple minutes to head off any problems at the outset before they have a chance to ruin my day.

2. Usually if I’m knitting a cardigan it’s for one of my sons. Neither of them is particularly gentle with his clothing so anything to make it sturdier is a good thing.

There are several ways to reinforce buttons on a knit cardigan.  One way is to place a second button on the wrong side behind the main button and then sew the two buttons on together so that the thread isn’t actually anchored to any stitches. 

You can also do this with a small piece of ribbon, felt, or other type of fabric that isn’t going to fray.  Place it on the wrong side behind the button and then sew the button on.  The thread will then pull on the fabric instead of an individual stich on your button band. 

My preferred method is to use a whip stitch to sew a length of grosgrain ribbon to the wrong side of my button band on the side where the buttons will go and then sew the buttons on.  This way the tension is distributed across the whole of the band and isn’t concentrated on and single stitch. This not only keeps the buttons from pulling but it also looks nice if you happen to catch a glimpse of the inside of the button band while the sweater is being worn.  You can even play with the color and design of the grosgrain to add a nice pop of contrast.

This is exactly what I did when knitting Beckett Ridge and Troublemaker. I didn’t have any ribbon at hand when I was finishing the Beckett Ridge sample (pictured above) so I used a strip of double fold bias tape with the center fold flattened out and the edges folded under. It was a bit of an experiment and thus far has held up as well as the button bands I’ve done with grosgrain ribbon.

The end result is a nice flat and stable button band.