Thought-Inspiring

Comments to this blog lately have provoked a lot of thought. I'm glad for that.

Wearability
Carol S. brings up an excellent topic with her ideas on wearability (she also brings up an excellent topic with reading comprehension, but discussing that would be clearly preaching to the choir...the remaining folks would understand anyway).

As for wearability, I think there are three factors:

- Sizing
- Style
- Shaping

The three "S's" of wearability.

Sizing took me a while to get, even for my own sweaters. When I was first able to create a sweater that fit me well, it made it relatively easy to figure out from then on. But my first handful of sweaters didn't really fit me well. Most of them were too small, as I didn't understand the concept of "ease" very well.

Style is relatively easy in men's sweaters, not quite as easy with women's. I know that Thaddeus and I both look better with a crew-neck (or shallow v-neck) and a set-in sleeve. And that goes for both pullovers and cardigans. Tunic shaped sweaters don't work well for either of us, so sweaters I make for us almost always have ribbing at the bottom. Also, form-fitting ribbed sweaters are not very flattering, so I stay away from those.

Shaping I'm still not very good at, although I'm learning. Fortunately, most men's sweaters don't require a lot of shaping, except at the shoulders. I've also realized that while I want ribbing at the bottom of my sweaters, I don't necessarily want it more narrow than the body of the sweater. As such, I usually have about 10% more stitches in the ribbing section, than the body.

Current Knitting
I didn't make quite as much progress as I had hoped this weekend on the baby blanket.



It is moving along smoothly, and I don't have that much more to go on it. When it's done, it will be a nice, good sized blanket. Definitely not one the baby would want to drag around.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Just to confirm what Marily, Carol and Kathy have been saying about newbie knitting, I have no problem with new knitters who make scarves as their introduction to knitting. I personally think that novelty yarns make it more difficult to teach a new knitter, but I don't even have a problem with folks who knit with them.

I know I've beat this to death, but I want to say it one more time. I highly encourage knitters that try things out, are thoughtful and imaginative in their knitting, and aren't afraid to try things they might end in failure.

I loved Purlpower's comment about how ironic it is that the less knitted knitwear looks, the better in some folks eyes.

Although, I have to admit, the first time I made a pair of the felted clogs by Fiber Trends, I was amazed at the result.

Michelene asks "Anybody on the blog looking forward to the Star Wars movie? (besides me?) Joe, have you and Thaddeus seen the Life Aquatic yet?

Thaddeus and I intend on going to see the Star Wars movie this Friday, and we've seen Life Aquatic twice. I'm a big fan of Bill Murray, and this is him at his best.

Michelene then goes on to say "Joe, you havn't mentioned the alpaca bedspread in eons..." At which point, some of my formerly loyal blog readers piled on (as if they have no projects that have been stalled).

First of all, thanks to Marilyn for the support (at least I still have one loyal blog friend). And as for the bed spread/grave cover, I felt compelled to pick it up and do a little (very little) knitting on it this weekend.



Not enough work was done to change the percent complete, mostly because I had to figure out the stitch pattern again, and that took about five tries before I got it correct.

Finally, Lorna asks (in the prior post), "I'm curious as to what you have against shrugs?" JJ also mentions that his daughter loved all the shrugs and little knitted tank tops.

These two readers give what I feel are the two valid exceptions to my disdain for shrugs. Lorna wears them in bed, which I think is a perfect place for them, and JJ's daughter has the style and body to get away with wearing funky designs.