Audrey A-Long

FINITO!

My Audrey is finished! You can see photos of me wearing it over at my site. To see them, follow me here: Finished Audrey (P.S. There is also a photo of me posing on a Piaggio Vespa! Vroom, vroom!)

Project notes: I did Audrey in the XS size, using Calmer in "Amour". I lengthened the torso by about 2 cm because i) I have a long torso, and (ii) the sleeves, which I had knit first, seemed very long. [Note: My sleeves were at the measurement called for in the pattern.]

Something else that I should note is that I did not do the darts as called for in the pattern. I didn't notice that the sweater had vertical darts when I saw the photo of the sweater in the mag, but discovered it later when I looked at the pattern. From the beginning I was considering omitting them, and in the end I did. However, I wanted my Audrey to have waist shaping, because I think it's important in order for the sweater to have that pinup-y look. [Wiggles eyebrows.] So I simply moved the increases and decreases to the sides, two stitches inside. I did the increases as called for in the pattern, BUT I had to do the decreases over a different number of rows, as the decreases in the darts are DOUBLE decreases. As the decreases I did were single decreases, I simply worked them over half the number of rows established in the pattern. I will not reproduce pattern specifications here (or via email) for copyright reasons, but let's say that if a pattern calls for double decreases every "X" number of rows but you want to change those double decreases to single decreases, then you'd have to do them over HALF the number of "X" rows stated in the pattern.

Now. While I did do away with vertical darts, I didn't do away with darts entirely because even though I'm petite, I do have a bust. In order to avoid the ribbing from stretching out over the chest area, I decided to work an invisible HORIZONTAL BUST DART via short rows about 1 inch and a half below the armhole shaping of the front piece. To figure out where I wanted my dart, I held up the front piece in front of the mirror and took note of where I wanted to put it. [An inch and a half below the armhole worked for me, but another measurement might work for you. Hold up the piece against yourself while looking in the mirror, and take note of where the widest part of your chest is. That's where you want to put the dart.] Then, when I knit the front piece and reached where I had marked below the armhole, I simply worked short rows three stitches in from the edge. I wrapped three stitches every two rows twice. [Again, this measurement worked for me. If you're smaller you might need to work less, and if you're bigger you need to work more.]


Here is a photo that shows the bust dart AND the waist shapings (which are invisible when the sweater is worn) on my Audrey:

The result: No vertical darts, but we still achieved a form-fitting pinup-y Audrey. [Fact: My husband wriggled his eyebrows when he saw me in the sweater. Hee!] If you want to work a similar dart and shapings on your Audrey like I did on mine you can consult the following references:

To calculate HOW and WHERE to work a horizontal bust dart I used:

Vogue Knitting Ultimate Knitting Book.

Good references for working short rows (you can also find instructions for decreases/increases here):

Katharina Buss's Big Book of Knitting
Nancie Wiseman's Book of Finishing Techniques.

Posted by Becky at July 25, 2004 12:04 PM