Tips for Knitting Your Perfect Sweater

Knitting a sweater for yourself can be a fraught activity. You put so much time and effort (and money) into it, and you want it to be perfect, but often it just isn’t.

Sometimes the sleeves come out way too long (I have one of these; I left holes in the sleeves for my thumbs to go through and they’re still really long even using part of the sleeve as fingerless gloves), the body way too short (ditto) or somehow all of it can go wrong even though you’d swear you got gauge (yeah, I had one of those, too).

My solution to a lot of these problems is to design sweaters for myself, but I know not everyone can do that or wants to (even I don’t want to as often as I want to knit a sweater).

So how can we ensure a better chance of success? Check out the tips for knitting sweaters that fit from Karen Frisa, originally published in KnitScene. She advises really careful swatching, measuring and figuring to determine what you’re really going to get if you knit the pattern as written.

Hannah Baker tried these tips on a sweater she wanted to knit and wrote about her experience for the Interweave blog. I think you can tell from her smile that she loves the result!

How careful are you when you swatch for a garment? Have any horror stories? I’d love to hear them!

[Photo: George Boe, via Interweave.]

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Not too long ago my daughter and I had a discussion about what a chestnut really looks like. The nut itself is small and brown, of course, but on the tree they’re covered with this weird kind of spiky, kind of fuzzy shell. It’s a wonder anyone ever figured out they were edible.

If you didn’t know that, you might wonder why this project is call Chestnut balaclava, but now you know.

This fun design from Yevheniia Pyroh is covered with spikes just like a chestnut shell, and is even the same color, though of course you can make yours whatever color you like. It uses two strands of fingering weight yarn held together (which it says is fingering weight but you could try a light/DK yarn and see if you get gauge with it if you’d rather).

There are two different design options in the pattern. One is a more fitted balaclava style hat (it doesn’t cover the face but does go around the neck) and a looser fit hood.

It’s worked primarily in garter stitch, with shaping done by knitting and purling in the same stitch and through various decreases (including a knit 3 together).

The pattern is charted but also explained in words. It’s worked flat to the size you want, and then joined into a hood shape with ribbing at the neck. The opening for the face is finished with I-cord.

This hood/balaclava would definitely be a conversation starter and in different colors it might read more dinosaur than chestnut, which could also be fun. The sizing is totally custom so you can make it fit whatever head you’re stitching for.

If you want to try it for yourself (and I’d love to hear about it if you do!) you can download the free pattern from Ravelry.

[Photo: Yevheniia Pyroh]

Balaclava Knitting Patterns

Colorwork Balaclava Knitting Pattern [Knitting]

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