Are you a ripper or a fixer? I’m a bit of both.

One of the teachers at the Red Alder Fiber 2022 Festival said that i-cord is the duct tape of knitting. And while I’m sure that there are cases where this is true—it doesn’t fix all problems. For example, if you knit the armholes much, much, much too large–i-cord is not a solution.

Sweater patterns do not typically fit me. I have several things against me.

1. I’m curvy, particularly in the hip area.
2. I’m broad shouldered (wide across the back) and small breasted.
3. My rise from my breasts to my shoulder is long.
4. I’m almost 6 feet tall

The pattern I used is Audrey, by Melissa Leapman—a beautiful, easy-to-read, quick knit. To make it fit me better, I made adjustments to fit my unusual body. The design is for someone less curvy than me—it has no fitting but gave the impression of hourglass figure—no matter what your shape.

To deal with my longer body, I knit a few more “straight” rows at the bottom. To deal with my long measurement from top of the shoulder to nipple, I did this same at the top of the body too. Unfortunately, while this worked well at the bottom, it didn’t at the top. I ended up with a huge armhole–about 4″ to large for my twiggy little arms.

I really, really should have cut my losses early and tore it out. Instead I blocked the pieces, sewed them together and knit the button band. The latter took two tries to sort out with my adjustments.

After three tries at the sleeves, Bottom up, then top down, followed by a hybrid (armpit short rows), I realized that no amount of fiddling would fix it. But given I tend towards the fixer end of the spectrum, I sallied forth.

And now?

I’m ripping. But that’s okay, I have all kinds of ideas on what do to (and not to do) to make it fix me in the best way possible.

Wish me luck!