Friday, April 11, 2008

Sweater Math

I've cast on the Threepenny Pullover by Veronik Avery. I know working a pattern this delightfully complicated is probably a disaster waiting to happen, but I am hoping that I will have the common sense only to work on it when my faculties are at their peak. I actually have very high hopes for this sweater, I even knit a full-sized gauge swatch instead of my usual two inches (don't ask if I washed it, there's only so much one can expect).

So I'm up to Row Three and looking at the lovely pictures in the copy of The Best of Interweave Knits I picked up on my first trip to a book store in months (yay!), and while I love the cabled-smocked-craziness on the front, I don't want it on my back. I want the back to be a sea of moss stitch, and since I'm the one putting this together, I can have it my way. Problem is, the center pattern sucks up more stitches than moss stitch, so if I knit it with the stitch numbers provided, I will have a sweater suitable for a hunchback. Unless I want to get that job ringing the bells, I'll have make some adjustments (past substituting the yarn, I already did that).

Let's do some math:

22 inches (width of the back) times 5 stitches per inch (gauge) = 110 stitches at maximum width
110 stitches (new total) minus 56 stitches (moss stitch increases) = 54 stitches at cast-on

So far, so good. But, what about the neck shaping? We're gonna need some algebra here:

After following increase and arm decreases as directed we have 76 stitches left.
29/126=x/110
x=25 and some change (just a little change...)
Work 25, bind off 26, work 25 (this leaves 14 stitches to decrease on each side).
Bind off 4 three times, then 2 once. 11 stitches remaining on each side (as directed).

Anyone brave enough to check my work?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh. Are you kidding me? I've already knitted and unknitted row 7 of the Oblique sweater a million times. Totally not qualified to check math. Definitely not chemo knitting. But I work on it just the same. BTW, love the blog makeover!

KnelleyBelley said...

I teach 3rd grade. Any math beyond 10 x 10 or 100/10 is . . . well . . . beyond me. Good luck!