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Measurements and Patterns

pattern. For the patterns on the following pages, only half of the front and back is included in the drawing.

Sweater Width

In generał, the following applies lor traditional sweaters: Vi body mea-surement + 3 W = Vi sweater width. For a relaxed fit, you have to allow a little morę. Measure at the widest part of the chest. For very long sweaters, the hip mea-surement also has to be taken into consideration.

For sweaters that come only to the waist, measure the waist. If the sweater is supposed to be relatively snug, add about 1 Vi for the front and for the back, starting from the ribbing.

Sweater Length

The length is measured from the neck/shoulder point over the chest to the desired length. Notę that de-pending on the type of yarn and the way you knit, long sweaters usually stretch somewhat in length. For example, you should work a sweater in single shaker knitting a little shorter than you want it to be, because this patterns tends to stretch in length morę than double shaker knitting or textured patterns.

For sweaters that come only to the waist, measure the length from the neck/shoulder point to the waist, and add the ribbing length.

Necklines

For necklines, calculate */3 of the back width measured on the body plus approximately 1V4" to 1 Vi—in other words, about */3 of the sweater width for normal sweaters. For V' necks, a little less is enough, sińce the length of the neckline also influ-ences the width in this case.

To prevent sweaters and cardigans from slipping to the back, you should make a smali neckline on the back part too, except when you are making a completely straight boat neck. It should be at least deep. If you are adding a rather long neckband, it can also be IW to 1 Vi" deep.

Armholes

If you dont like dropped shoulders, you should always work an armhole. The looser the fit of the sweater, the deeper the armhole can be. Armholes can be straight, slanted, or rounded.

Slanted Shoulders

Slanted shoulders make every sweater fit better, because nobody has straight shoulders. And the wider the sweater, the morę important it is to have slanted shoulders, especially if you haven’t put in any armholes.

For short shoulder pieces, it is enough to work regular decreases over ³/i" to 1 W. Wide, long shoulder seams can be decreased over as much as 3”.

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