As I mentioned on Monday, there are lots of variables you can toy with within the existing parameters of the Sloper pattern to change the look of it in many ways — from playing around with the fabric and the seams to choosing between the crewneck and turtleneck options given in the pattern. And yesterday we talked about ways to resize the pattern without really changing the look of it. So today, let’s talk about how to actually make changes to the shaping of the pattern in order to change the style of the finished garment. (Download the side-by-side comparison of these diagrams in PDF form.)

WAIST SHAPING

Sloper contains no waist shaping — it’s a straight-sided, boxy little number.

• For a more curvaceous, form-fitting sweater, add traditional hourglass shaping at the waist. That is, decrease as you approach the waist, then increase again as you head toward the bustline. (For how the math on this works, see Improv.)

• For A-line shaping, cast on more stitches — being mindful of the multiple for the ribbing — and decrease out the extra stitches gradually as you approach the underarms. (Again, see Improv for how to calculate the spacing.)

ARMHOLE SHAPING

Sloper has quite narrow armhole shaping — it’s designed such that the fabric reaches out fairly far on your shoulders, with armholes that just slightly nip in from the side seams.

Fig. A: For an even boxier look, you could leave out the armhole shaping altogether — just work the sides of the garment straight all the way up to the shoulder, leaving an 8.75″ gap for the armholes when you seam the sides together. (Note the corresponding adjustment at the shoulder, since the original 3 armhole sts and 10 shoulder sts are now all 13 shoulder sts.)

Fig. B: For a funkier look, mimic the camel version and make a squared-off armhole by binding off all three underarm stitches at once, rather than gradually.

Fig. C: For an armhole that cuts in farther, bind off more underarm stitches. You could bind off 2-3 on the first BO row(s), and/or work one or two additional bind-off rows, instead of just 3 per side. What you’re doing is taking stitches away from the shoulder, moving the armhole edge inward, so you’ll be left with equivalently fewer shoulder stitches to bind off. However many you’re left with, bind them off in halves. (So for example, the pattern has 3 armhole stitches and 10 shoulder stitches on each side. You could shift that, e.g., to 5 armhole stitches and 8 shoulder stitches, bound off 4 and 4.) Do the math to determine how wide your changes will leave your armhole and your shoulder, based on your gauge. (See yesterday’s post for more on all of that.)

Fig. D: If rather than the clean slipped-stitch armhole edge Sloper is designed with, you’d prefer to add ribbing or another picked-up edge treatment, you’ll need an equivalent amount of room for it. For example, if you want to add 1″-wide ribbing around the armhole, you’ll need to start the shaping 1″ sooner (3 or 4 rows at pattern gauge) and move it inward an inch, as we did in Figure C.

NECK SHAPING

Sloper is written with a basic round neck for a picked-up neck treatment that can be finished as either a crewneck or a turtleneck.

Fig. E: For a V-neck, pinpoint how low you want the V to be (by calculating desired depth and your row gauge) and mark the tip of the V on the chart at the dead center of the garment, counting downward the appropriate distance from the top. Then rather than binding off stitches gradually as for a round neck, simply work that separation row [marked (D) on the pattern front] to the center stitch, place that first half of the stitches on hold, then work to the end of the row. To create the V, decrease 1 stitch at the neck edge every other row until your desired neck width, then work even to the shoulders. Repeat the process in reverse for the left front.

Fig. F: For a scoop neck, begin the neck shaping sooner (based on how deep you want it to be, calculated by your desired depth and your row gauge), so the front neck edge sits lower.

What you do with your neck edge is also up to you — pick up stitches and work ribbing or garter, or work a few rounds and bind off for more of a rolled edge. Or work a sloped bind-off and slipped-stitch selvage, same as the armhole edge, for a clean edge with no further treatment.

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS

By combining different variations of armholes and necklines, along with changing up the neck edging, you can create a wide variety of garments. For instance, if you combine a scoop neck (Fig. E) with Fig C-style carved out armholes, you’ll have turned it into a tank top, whereas Fig A boxy armholes and a deep V-neck would give you a completely different look. Or what if you did square armholes and a low square neck! (I.e., just bind off all the neck stitches at once rather than gradually.) And when you factor in making it longer or shorter, hourglass or A-line, the possibilities really are endless.

As noted yesterday, just make sure any changes you make to the front are matched identically on the back, so everything matches up properly (same number of armhole rows, same number of shoulder stitches) when it comes to seaming the pieces together.

So once again, I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Link your Ravelry projects to the Sloper pattern listing, and use the hashtag #sloperKAL to share your plans and progress on Instagram in the coming weeks.

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PREVIOUSLY: Sloper mods, part 1: Resizing the pattern

Today I want to talk about how to resize the Sloper sweater, which is also in some sense how to resize anything. Stitches are building blocks: The dimensions of any piece of knitted fabric are a function of [stitch size x number of stitches], plain and simple. The width or circumference of the fabric is determined by [stitch width (aka “stitch gauge”) x number of stitches]; length is determined by [stitch height (aka “row gauge) x number of rows].

• If you want a garment to be larger than the pattern size, you either need larger stitches or more of them.

• If you want a garment to be smaller than the pattern size, you either need smaller stitches or fewer of them.

Those are your two options: change the gauge or change the stitch count. Both require some math and some thoughtfulness.

CHANGING THE GAUGE

Again: smaller stitches and/or rows will create a smaller sweater. Larger stitches and/or rows will create a larger sweater. Keep in mind these two things are interdependent: smaller stitches will make a fabric that’s shorter as well as narrower; larger stitches will make a fabric that’s taller as well as wider. How much smaller/larger depends on the specifics. So if you want to knit at a slightly different gauge, you’ll need to do the math to determine the outcome—

• Width/circumference: Divide the pattern’s stitch count by your stitch gauge to find out how large it will turn out. [stitch count ÷ sts per inch = width]

• Height: For any stretch of knitting that’s given as a specific number of rows, divide the row count by your row gauge to find the measurement, and adjust as needed. [row count ÷ rows per inch = height] On the other hand, for any stretch of the pattern that is given in inches instead of rows, you’ll simply knit as many rows as it takes at your gauge to reach that height.

For example, if you’re knitting Sloper at 2 stitches/inch (instead of 2.25), the pattern’s 84 stitches (42 front and 42 back) will yield a circumference of 42″ (instead of 37.5″)*, but if your row gauge is correspondingly larger, you’re changing the height at the same time, which will affect the neck depth and armhole depth. So do the math to see if you need to make adjustments there, as noted in yesterday’s post.

If you just flat out want to knit at a totally different gauge, do the math to determine how many stitches and rows it will take to meet the dimensions, and remap the placement of the shaping accordingly. (Get out your graph paper!) One fairly simple thought is that if you were to knit at 4.5 sts per inch — exactly double the pattern gauge — all of the stitch counts would likewise be doubled. But you’d need to pay attention to your row gauge, again as above — do the math and see if you’d need to make adjustments, since your row gauge is not likely to be as neatly doubled.

CHANGING THE COUNTS

The more refined option — and the better one if you want to change the size more than a little — is to knit at pattern gauge but manipulate the stitch counts to affect the finished size. In this case, the stitch and row counts are not interdependent: You can add width (stitches) without adding height (rows), and vice versa.

Row counts change height

If you simply want the garment to be longer or shorter, all you need to do is add or subtract rows. The only question is where. Generally, you want to adjust rows during a work-even portion (a straight-sided stretch) of the garment.

• To change the total garment length without affecting the armhole depth, work more/fewer rows between the hem and the underarms.

• To change the armhole depth without changing the neck depth, work more/fewer rows between the underarm shaping and the neck shaping. Changing the armhole depth will change the total length, so make sure the two component lengths — cast-on-to-underarm + underarm-to-shoulder — add up to your desired total.

• To change the neck depth without changing the armhole depth, shift where the neck shaping begins (moving it up or down however many rows) while keeping the total row count from underarm to shoulders the same.

Remember to make sure your front and back armholes are the same depth, and that your side seams also match up unless you’re deliberately making an uneven hemline. But the armholes must match, no matter what.

Stitch counts change width/circumference

The sweater is two pieces — a front and a back — and whatever you do to one, you’ll also do to the other. At 2.25 sts/inch, each stitch is .44″, so that’s how much extra width you get for every stitch you add.

If you want the garment to be just a couple of inches bigger than written, adding 4 stitches — one at each edge — will give you an additional 1.8″ in total circumference, and that’s super easy to do in Sloper’s case. Simply increase the cast-on by one stitch at each edge — CO 44 sts per piece instead of 42 — and then you’ll bind off two stitches instead of one on the initial underarm BO row(s). But you do need to think about what happens to the ribbing at the side seams as a result of those extra stitches. If you’re leaving a split hem, I would just work 3 knits instead of 2 at each end, working the edge stitch as a slipped-stitch selvage. If you’re seaming all the way to the hem, though, you’d wind up with 4 knits together at the side seams instead of 2. (Note that knitting in the round to the underarms would have the same effect, since you’d retain the 4 selvage stitches that would otherwise be lost into the seam allowance at the end.)

If you need to size up any farther than that, it requires a bit more effort—

Say you want the front and back to each be 22″ across. You’d need to cast on 50 sts per piece instead of the 42 the pattern calls for. [22 inches x 2.25 per inch = 49.5, round to 50] That means you’re working with 8 extra stitches for the front and 8 extra for the back, so you need to figure out where you’ll put them.

From the cast-on edge to the underarms, all that matters is how your additional stitches factor into the ribbing. The pattern calls for 2×2 ribbing, which requires [(a multiple of 4 sts) + 2 to keep it symmetrical] — so it starts and ends with two knits. Adding 8 stitches doesn’t change anything in that regard, because you’re adding a multiple of 4. But if your new count doesn’t divide equally into that equation, you need to either round to a number that does or adjust the ribbing to something that works with your count — could be 1×1 ribbing or 3×2, or not ribbing at all but garter stitch or something else. Whatever works for you and your stitch count.

Once you reach the underarms, however, the stitch distribution requires some thought. As shown above (click to enlarge), the 42 pattern stitches are divvied up as follows:

3 underarm | 10 shoulder | 16 neck | 10 shoulder | 3 underarm

To maintain the proportions of the pattern, you’d want to add your stitches proportionally, so in our 50-stitch (8 added stitches) example, perhaps they’d get distributed like this:

4 underarm | 12 shoulder | 18 neck | 12 shoulder | 4 underarm

In this way, you can add as many stitches as you need in order to make the garment pieces as wide as you want them to be. Do the math on each section to understand how wide your adjustment means your neck, shoulders and armholes will be. As you go larger, you’ll probably want to add more to the shoulders than the neck, so the neck doesn’t get overly wide. Note that changing the neck width and/or depth might affect how many stitches you pick up for your neck treatment, so compare those numbers (under Finishing on the pattern) to see where you might need to adjust.

If you specifically want to change the neck or armhole shaping a bit, you can distribute your stitches to accomplish that, and we’ll get into that in tomorrow’s post.

MOST IMPORTANT: Remember that your front and back pieces have to match when it comes time to seam them together, so any changes you make to the front stitch count and distribution need to be repeated identically for the back.

Again, I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Link your Ravelry projects to the Sloper pattern listing, and use the hashtag #sloperKAL to share your plans and progress on Instagram in the coming weeks.

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*Again, bear in mind the seam allowance. Traditionally, mattress stitch is worked such that you lose one stitch at each edge (two stitches per seam) into the seam allowance. At this gauge, some people will work into the center of each edge stitch instead, so you only lose half a stitch per edge (or a total of one stitch per seam). You can do whatever you like, but I do it the traditional way, regardless of gauge, which means 4 body stitches total disappear into the seams. But really, what you lose in seaming can also be made up for in blocking. Numbers are squishy!

PREVIOUSLY: Sloper: Basic pattern for a sleeveless sweater