Shoulder/Upper arm shaping

Hi! I’m working away on this sweater - The Petite Knitter’s mayflower jumper - but I lost a little weight so now it’s looking a little big on me. As seen in the photo there’s kind of a
“hump”, or bump, maybe, in the color work section on my upper arm. Is there something I can do to the sleeve to correct it without ripping out the yoke? I don’t think it’s a huge deal and I’ll still wear this, just thought I’d check in case there’s something I can do about it. Thanks so much!

Lovely colour work.

I think you still have a cable in the knitting which is likely distorting how the fabric drapes on your arm, making it stick out rather than lie flatter. It could be that just removing the cable and washing the fabric makes this all lie a little more naturally and you’d be happier with it.

Certainly you can decrease more stitches, or more rapidly in the sleeve to make a narrower top section but you’d need to consider where the divide is, is it above that band of colour work? Would you want to frog that section of colour to start some decreases before it? Or perhaps just take out the single colour up to the colourwork, leaving the stranded work in place, and begin decreases there?
You wouldn’t want to make a very sudden and dramatic decrease but you can certainly make an adjustment to the pattern.

There’s a handy calculator you could use to recalculate the overall sleeve decreases from where you choose to start the decreases down to an inch or so before the cuff. You need to know you starting stitch count, the number of rows you will work (use your gauge to calculate how long the sleeve is in rows) and how many stitches you want before the rib (use gauge to calculate how many stitches for a comfortable and more fitted sleeve circumference), these go into the calculator and it will work out when to decreases.
https://www.worldknits.com/knitting-calculators

Or, you could consider a redesign and continue a wider sleeve in this area and down to the elbow (or just below) then have a rapid narrowing at a transition to rib and complete the sleeve in a narrow long rib, something reminiscent of a leg-o-mutton sleeve shape although without the big puff at the top.
Here’s a pic of the shape to give an idea of what I mean

This one has a great pic of a striped vintage sweater if you look through the pics

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1155838149/vintage-1930s-knit-jumper-with-puffy

Or even adding increases to widen down to the elbow an then drawn right in like this

All depends what kind of result you’d like.

Stunning sweater! Thanks for the name and designer information.


When I look at the details page and some of the projects, your shoulders are just about where the yoke/sleeve join falls. The upper sleeve doesn’t look out of line with the sweater design. Once the sleeve is worked it will also weight down that shoulder.

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One other thing to consider is whether your tension changed where the “bump” is.

It does look as though the arm might be too big on you though (too much ease). Could you measure the sleeve of a jumper that fits you how you would like this one to fit and see how it compares?

You could potentially hide a few decreases in the rows just before the line of “dot, plain, dot, plain” stitches.

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That sleeve looks very much too large compared to the pattern photos. Should there have been some decreases before your “bump”? Or did you place too many stitches on hold, and more should go into the body of the sweater? It looks like if the sleeve had one less flower, it would be a better size.

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