Twitter Sweater: Body Construction

One more thought on sleeve volume that I forgot to mention yesterday: increasing the sleeves by *also* increasing the needle size, progressively. I'm more into this idea than I would have thought. Sometimes changing needle size to change the garment size seems like a cop-out from a design point of view; however, I've been pondering sheer vs. solid fabric for this project, so opening up the stitches for a portion of the garment would add an airiness to the sleeves that may be desirable.

But back to today's topic! The more I think about this project, the more I am sure I want to work it in the round, sleeves and body. Going with flat for part and in-the-round for another could cause gauge problems. with the body of the sweater, since I am going to work in the round, there really are only two options, either top-down or bottom-up.

I'm most comfortable doing a raglan-style yoke when working top-down. I know that you can do other seamless yokes from the top, but I haven't tried that yet, so I'm not sure this is the time to experiment with that. Raglan lines would be OK, though the original dress has set-in sleeves; however, that's because it's dress-making, sewn fabric, whereas, I am making the garment while making the fabric, so I can do things a little differently. I'm still not sure how high I want the neckline - if this is for me, I want it a little more scooped. Having a bust, the high crewneck the dress has would not be particularly flattering. Again, the dress is to be inspiration not a rigid pattern to copy in knitted fabric.

Since I have done seamless yokes from the bottom-up in a few different ways (raglan, saddle, and set-in), I feel more comfortable working that way. Holy guacamole, working a seamless set-in sleeve was fun! Almost as magical as the first time I worked a cable. Anyway, I'm still not sure which yoke style is best for this project; it may be that a traditional round yoke, usually used for sweaters with stranded colorwork in the yokes. The round yoke would be the subtlest, the style that would distract the least from the sleeves.

Well, there is a third option, which is to cast on provisionally at an appropriate spot (right under the bust, I think), work up through the bodice and then pick up those stitches and work down, probably until the yarn runs out.

I like option #3! Of course, I still have to solidify a yoke style decision, but I'm getting there, I think. It really is helpful to write this down.