About a year ago I showed off my Monami Cardigan. It's a beautiful pattern, but my attempt had a few serious flaws. I never did fix the overly small shawl collar, because I decided that some things aren't worth the effort and it didn't need to fold over after all. The worst fit problem, however, was this weird shoulder poof in the sleeve right at the top of the armscye. I wasn't sure what caused it, and I assumed it was because I did a poor job of setting in the sleeve or because the sleeves were too narrow for my arms.
I was watching episode 79 of the Stockinette Zombies Podcast and Amy's new cardigan had the same problem! They discussed possible causes and solutions - and it turned out that row gauge was the culprit in my goofy shoulder problem (I think the shoulders were too wide at the seam as well, which made it impossible to hide the sleeve lump). The sleeve piece just gets way too tall as it narrows, meaning it can't fit in the armhole. It looked like ripping back was the only real option - so, on a whim, I did!
I started by cutting the yarn that seamed the pieces together and opening up the shoulder to just below where the excess sleeve fabric began. I inserted a dpn along a row of stitches at the right height and ripped back to that point.
You can see in the picture how much area the excess fabric had taken up. A lot.
 |
| Also - yarn ramen! |
Then I simply bound off the sleeve stitches and seamed the shoulders shut again, lining the centre of the sleeve back up with the shoulder seam.
The new silhouette is a little more drop-shouldered than set-in, but the fit is fantastic.
Also, you get to see my dingy bathroom. You lucky duck.
hurrah! don't you feel ever so clever when you can fix stuff like that? i do :) xo
ReplyDeleteI really do :D That fit issue had made my sweater a lazy day only garment - now I want to wear it all the time! Except it's summer so not really because that would be awful.
Delete