I am in the middle of seaming a sweater. I basted it and tried it on to see the fit and was disappointed to see that it looks too big . . . and I knitted a size “small.” There wasn’t an “extra small.” When I started this sweater I was skeptical about knitting a “small” because, to my knowledge, I’ve never worn a “small” anything in my life, lol! But, I used another sweater of mine as sort of a template for sizing, and consulted with a friend and both indicated that I needed to knit the “small.” I think what happened was when I blocked it, it stretched. I thought I was careful about wetting it down and transferring it to some mesh sweater dryers and lay out and dry. I read somewhere to treat it like washing a child’s hair. I noticed that the sections seemed to look larger to me, but I just thought maybe I had been looking at it so long it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. What I am thinking about doing though is one of two things:
seam the sweater with a wide seam allowance and pull it in some around the body and sleeves, or
seam the sweater with a normal amount of seam allowance and then attempt to shrink it in the dryer (it’s 100% wool).
I know many of you may be gasping at the last idea, but I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to do that successfully, and if so, how?
I wouldn’t try #2 (she said, gasping). Knitted fabric usually shrinks much more in one direction than the other, often lengthwise:gah:. You’re more than likely to end up with short, fat, felted and/or distorted pieces.
Wow! That was an interesting link! I hadn’t thought about the possibility that shrinking it in the dryer would only make it shrink in one direction or, worse, felt! I’m glad I asked before attempting anything at all. I’ll think about it some more and decide for sure later. I’m leaning towards seaming a wide seam allowance. In hindsight, I wish I had never blocked it. It was flat and straight already. I wish I had trusted my first instinct.
I usually decide that a too-big sweater was fated to be given to someone else. So if smooshing it doesn’t work, you can always gift someone with a sweater for Christmas.
Oh, no no no! I’m not giving this away. It’s knitted with Noro, so $$$!!! (although, I did save some $ by shopping for the yarn on Ebay), and it’s taken me almost a year to knit. I started it over several times trying to figure out which size. So, this one’s mine. Maybe I’ll post a pic if I ever figure out how to do that.
Depending on the style of the sweater, if it doesn’t already have ribbing at the bottom, sometimes adding ribbing makes a sweater look ‘roomy’ rather than ‘too big.’
There’s not any ribbing on it anywhere. It’s just the overall style of the sweater. It has drop sleeves where the shoulders come down and then the sleeves start about mid bicep. So, I think that adds to the illusion that it looks over-sized, which I think was just the way the pattern was designed. It’s a Noro pattern~the cover of Noro Unlimited.