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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The felted slipper craze that began last year doesn’t seem like it’s fading away. The Sailor Slippers, often striped knit and felted slippers made with super bulky yarn, because the project of the moment late last year (check out more knit slipper options in this post all about sailor slippers) and they’re still consistently popular with knitters.

Which makes sense because they are fun and fast to knit, and seeing them go from this giant thing to something that actually fits a foot feels a little magical.

I have always loved felting (in fact my first book was about felting knitting) and it’s always fun for me to see people rediscover this technique.

If you’ve knit enough plain slippers to fit all the feet you know, maybe it’s time to stitch up some tabi style slippers instead.

Maymade Knits has designed these cute tabi ballerina slippers, made with bulky yarn and felted. They’re worked flat at first and then in rounds, and are available in 10 EU sizes (the Internet tells me add 31 to your American shoe size to get your EU size). The designer says the slippers are meant to have a close fit and you should choose a size a little smaller than your foot for the ideal fit.

The pattern includes a video tutorial along with the written pattern.

You can grab this pattern on Ravelry. The same designer has her own version of the striped felted slipper as well, called Sarah’s Striped Slippers. These are worked in super bulky yarn and have a contrasting foot and a striped body. These are knit flat and seamed and there are 7 size options available. Check that pattern out here if you’re looking for a more traditional slipper shape. They also look roomier so you can wear them with socks if you like.

[Photo: Maymade Knits]

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