I was asked about this, so I thought I'd put in my next project.
But first a little bit about the reasons for doing my calculations in the first place. Most ladies garments have an armhole bodice drop of 20cm, this is from the beginning of the armhole shaping to the beginning of the shoulder shaping. My problem is - I'm 25cm. I am tall with a large frame. This tutorial has taken away all my best guess work, and I'm very happy with the last two armhole shaping and sleeve cap results.
Now, this is my swatch for my next project in 5ply Bendigo Classic on SK280, LC2, revamped card 12 from my fine gauge set. T8 = 26st /36rs = 10cm
Next thing is work out my cast on, waist shaping and width of my bodice (40cm). converting everything into stitches and rows. All I need to know to calculate my armhole shaping. I need 90 rows (for my 25cm self - and might I add I LOVE not having my tops (sweaters) cutting under my arms all day) . But back on track... Ok, so one third of 90 is 30 rows, which I put into Helga's Chart, and calculate that I need to decrease 58 stitches BOTH SIDES, so I divide that by 2 giving me 29 sts. (with me so far?)
All I need to do is put a THIRD the rows of my rows in the three vertical blocks and HALF of stitches I don't need any more.
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| Armhole Shaping Graph |
First I put in the rows in this case in single row counts, then all the stitches, then markers to correspond to the grid, and as you can see I needed to fudge a little and I'm two rows past the exact point, but it will be fine as the rest of the decreases work out. If I was writing it for hand knitting I'd say:
Armhole Shaping, decrease 9 sts at the beginning of the next two rows, then 1 sts at each end, in the next and every row 9 times, then every second row 9 times (104 sts remain).
But if I'm writing for the Kindle next to the machine I'd write:
RC000
-9 x 2
-1 ea end ev row to RC 12
-1 ea end ev 2R to RC 30 (104sts)
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Now I'm ready to do my calculations for my sleeve cap, there's a little more calculations but not that hard when I break it into chunks.
Let's get straight into it. My biggest guesswork was... How may rows do I make my sleeve cap, now I've increased my bodice height by 5cm. This has always been less than satisfactory. The total number of rows for my sleeve cap will be 4/5 of my bodice measurement. I know my bodice height is 90 rows, and I divide it by 5 and times it by 4 (or I need 4/5th or 80%) making my sleeve cap height to be 72 rows. These 72 get divided into 4 to fit in the vertical grid - 18 rows each square
This is how I do my excel. I mark out my rows - in two row increments until the LAST QUARTER, where I find in single rows works best and as a visual aid, when I change to single rows, I coloured them in yellow. I put a marker in the quarter row point and the stitches I need to have left - as in my diagram above, 42, 28 then 14. This makes it easy for me to move the stitches to fill in the spaces evenly.
The first square - my initial decrease is half the total number in the first square - 7 stitches. then the next 7 have to be gone so now I have decreased my 14 sts by row 18.... only one 4 row section.
The next 36 rows ... I need to decrease 14 sts over the next 36 rows. I move the column of stitch numbers so that the 28 stitches I need to have left by row 54. I need to fill in the gap with every 4th row decreases, so 41 goes to row 22 and so on until all my stitches are evenly distributed
Now I am onto the last quarter and I've changed from every second row to every row and coloured it yellow so I remember! I need to decrease 14 sts over the next 18 rows. I move the column of stitches to the last row, then move them up to have them every second row (to match the previous pattern - I've been doing every second row decreases, so it continues the same way until I can decrease every row.
And this is it for my kindle. All I want to know is when to do decreases.
1 comment:
Wonderful information! Thank you so much!
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