Tuesday’s Tip – How to Choose the Right Size
Today’s tip is from Kirsten Hipsky, designer for Valley Yarns. She has some great suggestions for selecting the perfect size to make for your next garment.
To help figure out which size to make, I recommend measuring around your chest at its widest and choosing the closest size to that measurement, making the larger one if you’re between sizes.
Another helpful exercise is to measure the bodies of your current favorite sweaters or sweatshirts just underneath the sleeves. This will help you see ahead of time which size sweaters you like wearing the most.
We try to design all of our Valley Yarns sweaters so that they could be worn with zero inches of ease. That is, a person with a 40″ chest should be able to wear the 40″ finished chest measurement sweater without the sleeves or neck being too tight. But if you prefer looser sweaters, you could easily make a larger size.
Most of the sweaters could also be worn with a couple inches of negative ease if you like tight-fitting sweaters. The Kohl Lace Pullover, for example, has a stretchy, lacy stitch pattern and a roomy, straight sleeve that could probably be worn with up to 4″ of negative ease. But I would measure your current sweaters first to make sure that’s what you would like.
The sweater shown in the picture is Valley Yarns 464 Bittersweet Pullover knit in Valley Yarns Sheffield.
- Tuesday’s Tip – Keeping Track of Alternate Increase Rounds - March 25, 2014
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Tags: crochet tips, knitting tips, measurements, Tuesday's Tip
April 16th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
My problem is that my knitting is “relaxed”. I’ve tried gauging on a handful of ocassions, but that hasn’t really worked out so well for me. 🙂 Could be why I really dislike doing it. Generally, what I end up having to do is make my sweaters a size or two smaller than what I think I should make, OR size my needles down a size or two.
April 16th, 2013 at 2:00 pm
So you are you saying all I need to do is measure my chest?? I am a tight knitter, do this matter?
April 16th, 2013 at 2:46 pm
What a cute sweater in the illustration! What’s the name of the pattern?
April 16th, 2013 at 3:30 pm
I was just going to ask the same question 🙂
April 16th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Thirding that request! 🙂
April 17th, 2013 at 12:42 am
As long as you are knitting to guage, it should not matter if you are a tight knitter or not.
April 17th, 2013 at 12:46 am
I usually go down 2-3 needle sizes with my knitting too (helps reduce the stress in my wrists). I find that a nice big swatch works well… and I HATE to waste the time & the yarn… but it is just so necessary. Sigh. If I am swatching something that is to be knit in the round, I make sure to swatch in the round too… the sweater I’m working on, I made two sleeve swatches, about 8″ long (different needles) before I could make the final decision on which look I liked better, and whch size of the pattern I was going to make. Now that I took the time I’m thrilled I did… because my first cable sweater is looking super beautiful.
April 17th, 2013 at 2:32 pm
Making it 4 requests for the pattern name.