Proportional ease on negative ease garments - do or don't?

Hi there! I’ve heard people mention that many people dislike proportional ease, where the amount of ease in a garment is a percentage of your measurement (like 15% ease on a 34" bust is 5", and on a 60" bust is 9". I understand why many people don’t like it for positive ease garments, but I haven’t been able to find much about it online for negative ease garments. Does anyone here have any thoughts about it, particularly plus-size knitters?

More context below:
I ask because I’m working on a pattern for an extremely stretchy ribbed sweater. My sample for a 34" bust has 12" of negative ease - this corresponds to ~21" of negative ease on a 60" bust. Which sounds crazy, I know! But this is a 2x2 ribbed garment, where the fabric still has a ton of stretch left-over - when I wear my sample, I can still stretch it out to fit another one of me inside it. I figured I should grade it based off the desired stitches per inch of how stretched the ribbing should be, so it would have a consistent look across all sizes. If the ribbing is stretched less (which would be the case if I have less negative ease on larger sizes), then the purl columns won’t be as visible, so the bust shaping design feature won’t be noticeable, and I overall think the look and fit would be quite different from my sample.

I sent this to an experienced tech editor and she told me that this much ease “definitely won’t fit” but wasn’t able to articulate why this would be the case over email (she wanted to do a call but then cancelled and I’m anxious to move forward with the pattern so I want more opinions). Could anyone share their thoughts on negative ease garments like this one, especially if you’re dealing with a veryyy stretchy fabric like wool ribbing?

Hello
I’m probably not the person to reply to this, I’m not a knit designer, nor a tech editor, nor plus size - but I am making a 2x2 very stretchy rib top so I thought I’d chip in.

To me your measurement sounds fine for the width of the body.

I’m making my sweater without a pattern, because I couldn’t find a pattern that I thought would be small enough for me. The stitch count in the ribbed tops I could find would have not been snug on me. I wanted a very fitted top to fit snuggly under another sweater and to act as a kind of thermal layer, also I wanted it very stretchy so it would be comfortable to put on and wear. So I worked out my own pattern.
My top laid flat is 10" across (no shaping, worked straight) so with no stretch 20" bust. It will stretch comfortably to double this size, so a 40" bust. I am 34" bust.
Based on what I can see in mine I would say that the negative ease on your pattern for a large size makes sense.

My stitch count is basically the same as if I made a stockinette sweater with a couple of inches of ease resulting in a 36" bust. So, if you were to knit your 60" in stockinette, would it fit the wearer? Is it roughly the same stitch count as a regular sweater in stockinette the same yarn?
Roxanne richardson has a rib tutorial where she says it’s not about how much rib stretches, it’s about how much rib contracts (it’s the same stitch count as st st but it pulls in to a smaller size).

1 Like

@Creations Omg THANK YOU for this response. I’m honestly ashamed I didn’t think to search ribbing on Roxane’s channel!! I just watched the video you’re referencing. Yes, if I knitted my sweater’s stitch counts for the 60" bust in stockinette stitch, it would fit with neutral ease.

Yes, that tutorial is great. She explains so well and the swatches are brilliant, so clear to see how the rib stretches out to the same size as stockinette.

I was thinking about your question and wondering which other aspect of measurement might need to be taken into account.
One thing that occurs to me is that when relaxed the rib looks long and perhaps the length measurement needs close consideration - as fabric is stretched width ways it shrinks length ways (stockinette too, when blocking a stockinette piece it can be persuaded to be longer or wider but not really both). I would think you need to check the row count is equal to a stockinette sweater to give the desired length when the rib is stretched out during wearing rather than the inch measurement when relaxed. I know I’ve taken that into consideration on my own sweater but can’t tell you off the top of my head what my findings were!

Another thing I learned through trial and error (as an inexperienced pattern maker, I have made alterations to existing patterns when i knit but this is the first top I have made where I did all the design and measurements myself with no base pattern, so I am a total amateur) is the required fit of the sleeve. Using online resources to design my first attempt at armhole, sleeve and sleeve cap I ended up with my armhole way too big for my body. The sleeve and sleeve cap fitted well into the armhole but the whole thing didn’t fit me. Such a snug fitting top needs an armhole pretty much right up in the armpit which sounds awful but that’s how it fits well. I’m sure you already know this though.

It takes a bit of courage to knit a top that looks so small. I imagine many people not believing it could fit - I have checked and rechecked my own measurements many times whilst knitting and even wrote myself a note not to be put off by the tiny width!
The yarn I’m using also knits tighter and relaxes a significant amount in washing so it looks even smaller and when I started knitting I had to have faith it would get bigger with washing and also the rib would stretch to a good size which would not look overstretched when worn.

1 Like

Yes, that’s a great point about the length! Ribbing definitely shrinks vertically as it’s stretched horizontally. So far the pattern gives suggestions on various lengths to knit to, but also suggests frequently that you should try it on and make sure you’ve reached your full bust, waist, hips, etc before doing the shaping.

I do have it sitting pretty high up in the armpit (which is why I chose a machine washable yarn lol). It’s basically a top-down raglan minus the upper part of the raglan yoke. I think I might offer some suggestions on how to mix-and-match your arm size and upper body size though, since I think upper arms do vary a ton and there’s less “wiggle room” with a smaller circumference of ribbing than a large on.

Thanks so much again for such thoughtful responses to this question. I posted a similar thread on the AdvancedKnitting subreddit and have gotten some interesting responses there too that have been helpful. I’ve also now chatted with a couple of other designers who have successfully released ribbed patterns with 30-40% negative ease, who got positive feedback from plus size knitters.

Overall it seems like some of the knee-jerk reaction against proportional ease is a) people not understanding the amount of stretch this fabric has, b) being kind of dogmatic against proportional ease in general due to issues with it in positive ease garments, and c) many people personally preferring a less formfitting garment.

Now that I’m not doubting my basic math as much, I think it does make a lot of sense to consider C. I’m actually not entirely sure how well a less-formfitting version of this sweater would stay up, as it’s an off-the-shoulder sweater, but it sounds like a strong preference for many people so I think I’m going to add a couple of extra sizes to the top of the range so that everyone will be able to size up if they prefer to. My preference is to have the sizing chart suggest how you can faithfully recreate the look of the sample, which means having the ribbing look the same on your body as it does on mine. But adding extra sizes to the top so that you can knit a 5XL with less negative ease, would allow people to go rogue if they’d like to!

1 Like

Glad I could be of somewhere and it sounds like you’ve had lots of feedback elsewhere too which is great.

I’m sure that knitters will be glad of the various size options you are offering. Finding something in a size I can knit always seems to be a struggle for me, both for knitting for myself (smallest size still comes up too big on slip overs or vests) and when knitting for my son (lots of patterns seem to stop at age 10 or 12 years and then leap into men’s sizes). I’ve just started planning his next sweeter using an age 9 to 10 years pattern and making alterations. Sometimes I’d like to just buy yarn get a pattern and “just knit” but it seems impossible.

Good luck with the rest of your designing.

Okay lol my final brain dump this topic in case anyone else finds this interesting - I ended up meeting again with the tech editor, and ultimately she now agrees with me that this approach makes sense. When you look at my sweater’s dimensions as if it were knitted in stockinette (a proxy for ribbing gauge that Roxane Richardson suggests), every size would have 0-2" of positive ease. When you swap in the ribbed fabric instead, it does mean that it clings to you in a way that stockinette wouldn’t (since ribbing pulls inward at rest), but it still has the ability to stretch 2x its width, so it’s in that sense fitting the same across every size.

I also looked up some more information about elasticity and stretch in general. I was wondering to myself if it takes more force to stretch a longer ribbed fabric the same percentage- eg would the larger sizes feel more tight when worn? But Hooke’s Law suggests that as long as you’re within the “range of elasticity”, each additional inch of the material that’s stretched takes the same amount of force as it did to stretch the previous inch, eg elastic materials stretch linearly up until you’re at the point where you’re stretching past its elasticity and are about to actually deform the material (eg you’ve stretched the ribbing all the way out, now it’s like stretching stockinette which has its own stretch factor, and then as you keep stretching you’re eventually approaching the absolute limit of the material). Since this fabric can stretch 2.75x its resting length, you’re not going to be approaching that stretch limit even as you manipulate it to get it on, or as your belly changes while sitting down, etc.

I also looked up how springs behave in series, like if you have two springs with equal spring constants attached to each other end-to-end, as a proxy for thinking about what happens when you have twice the length of a stretchy ribbed swatch for instance. If you apply a force to a single spring, and it stretches by 1", then if you apply the same force to two of those springs attached to each other in series, it will stretchy by 2" (this is assuming they have negligible weight, which isn’t true for fabric for instance, but that weight probably just serves to stretch the fabric even more). So it takes the same amount of force to stretch the longer ribbed fabric by the same proportion- in the case of my sweater, by 36%. So the sweater should be equally comfortable and easy to stretch for every single size, and equally easy to get on and off.

Anyway. I’m obviously overthinking things, but I found it really confusing to be told “this absolutely will not fit” or “this will be suffocatingly tight” without anyone being able to articulate why they think that would be true. So far I can’t think of any evidence to support why that would be the case, beyond the separate argument that someone might not prefer to wear formfitting clothing regardless of how comfortably stretchy it is

1 Like