WIP Wednesday: Process Improvements, or This is Your Brain on Armhole Shaping
If I were to fill out one of those “what people think I do…what I actually do” memes, the reality is the “what I actually do” would involve a lot of swatching and a lot of staring at spreadsheets a lot of the time, and only a bit of the "romantic knitting in quiet, serene places” that I, um, occasionally try to foreground on instagram. This is certainly one of those weeks.
In addition to working on some new sweaters for Fall 2019 and beyond (yup, still!), I’ve also been working on updating the sizing for my previously published sweater patterns, in response to the really important discussions going on in our community around size inclusivity. For a lot of these patterns, this has meant adding one or two sizes, which is relatively straightforward, but for my magazine patterns, many of which were only sized to fit up to a 44” bust, this has meant some more wholesale regrading.
I really enjoy the puzzle-solving process of grading garment patterns, and I’ve appreciated getting a chance to revisit some of these older patterns. I haven’t been designing for that long in the grand scheme of things (I published my first pattern in early 2016), but this is a practice sport, and you learn a ton by doing. As I’ve gone back to expand sizing for those earlier patterns, I’ve also made some updates for clarity, and some sizing tweaks (particularly at what we call the “break point,” the width of a set-in-sleeve sweater after you’ve worked the underarm bind off and decreases). Those patterns are now in tech editing, and I’m looking forward to getting them back out shortly.
So, what can you expect from the new sizing?
Everything that’s currently sized down to a 28” bust will stay that way, but everything will now go up to a size that will fit a 64” bust (which means, for sweaters with a lot of positive ease, the finished bust numbers will be quite large for the largest sizes, and we’ll talk some about how much ease you might or might not want to use as bust size increases).
Going forward, my size range will cover sizes to fit busts from 30-64”. For closer-fitting patterns, this will mean somewhere between 9-11 sizes, because you just need more increments to cover more range. For sizes with more ease, it will likely mean 6-8 sizes to cover the range, at slightly wider increments.
If you’ve purchased the pattern on Ravelry, you’ll receive an update automatically when the updated patterns are ready.
I’ll keep everyone posted via Instagram, this blog, and my newsletter as pattern updates become available.
Size inclusivity is important to me, and I’m sorry for the ways in which I’ve fallen short in this area in the past. I’m looking forward to getting these updated patterns out into the world, and to continuing to make more size-inclusive patterns available in the future. As always, if you have questions, please let me know via the comments below or by e-mail.