Tina ReSizes

8/6/2019 Tina ReSizes

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Tinas KindaSimple Guide toResizing Knitting

Patterns

From Human-Sizeto Resin-Size!


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Its All In the MathFirst, a very important disclaimer: I am not an expert inresizing patterns, and in fact, Im still learning a lot aboutall things related to knitting including how to resize apattern. However, I do have an elementaryunderstanding of how to knit something that fits usingsome of the math involved in resizing patterns that I want to share with you. Hopefully, the bits and pieces I know can help get you started on your very own knittingadventure. For more expert instructions, try these sitesinstructions and tutorials:

} Knitty} Knitting Daily} Sizing Knitting Patterns} Elann.com


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GaugeIf I knew that knitting involved so much math, I would havepicked a di fferent hobby!

~a classmate in my Fresh City Li fe knitting class

Its something most knitters hate to do, but it reallymakes a HUGE difference in the results of all your

hard work knitting a test swatch to figure out thegauge. This usually means taking your yarn and your needles and knitting a patch of fabric about 4 inchesby 4 inches in a simple stockinette stitch and thenmeasuring the stitches running horizontally andvertically to come up with the following:

____ stitches = 1 inch ____ rows = 1 inch


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Actually, Theres More To ItBut its actually more involved than that, but in a nutshell itsabout the stitches and rows. Technically, you should knit andmeasure at least 4 inches by 4 inches so you find out how manystitches it takes using your specific yarn, needles, and knittingtension to make 4 inches of fabric, , but for dolls, I find that 1 inchX 1 inch is close enough. There may be some variations from inchto inch due to your knitting tension (i.e. how tightly or looselyyou tend to knit) and characteristics of the yarn itself, so knitting 3or 4 or 5 inches can help reveal those variations and you canaverage the number of stitches it takes to knit 1 inch by 1 inch of

fabric. People knit at different tensions and that is why oneperson who uses size X needles and brand Y yarn comes out witha totally different size swatch than someone else using the exactsame needles and yarn.


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Tinas WayBy the way, I should probably mention that I have atendency to take a human pattern and just startknitting it with finer yarns and thinner needles thancalled for. After a couple of days of knitting, I quitkidding myself and accept that the item is going tobe too big. But then instead of ripping it out andstarting over, Ill rub my hands together and with anevil laugh Ill take a ruler and start measuring the thing.

See?I

usually try to get out of knitting a test gauge andthen end up having to salvage the pitiful results of mylaziness. Hah!


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O ther things to consider before measuring your test swatch ishow heavy your finished garment going to be because longer items weights means that gravity will pull down your knittedgarment and this may shorten how many stitches to the inch thatyoull need. I just learned this from a cape that Im knitting for his

doll. My test garment came out longer than he wanted, but itdraped beautifully and all. The shorter (by 3.5 inches) length thathe wants means it doesnt drape the same, and suddenly I needto do what Chanel used to do and sew lead or chain weights tothe hem to make up the difference. Its a bit too convoluted toexplain in this tutorial, but how heavy your finished garment isgoing to be impacts your swatch in that you should weigh your swatch down to match the finished weight and THEN measurethe vertical and horizontal stitches.


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To Block or Not To Block Additionally, you should block your swatch beforemeasuring it if youre going to block your finishedproduct. That way you wont knit something that fitsbeautifully fresh off the needles , but when you block your item it turns into something horrifyingly bigenough to fit a Cabbage Patch Kid doll. I usuallydont bother to block my test swatch because I dontblock the finished item when I knit.(Then again, my doll knits are not as beautiful as other talented knitters who

make clothes for dolls, so maybe I should stop being so lazy! O ne day I willgo through all that trouble, but for now, approximately works well enough.Hey, Im still learning, give me a break!)

Helpful Reading is Knittys Swatch Out article or MarySmiths Understanding Knitting Gauge .


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After you finish knitting your test swatch, count how many stitchesthere are in an inch of that swatch . If youre more of aperfectionist than I am and want to count more than 1 inch (say2 or 3), you can figure out the average number of stitches to theinch (i.e. if there is 30 stitches in 3 inches, you can see that there

are 10 stitches in 1 inch. That is, 30 3 = 10).


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Count how many rows are in an inch. Perfectionists you can goahead and count more than 1 inch (say 2 or 3) and let us know ifyou can figure out the average number of rows to the inch (i.e. ifthere is 15 rows in 3 inches, you can see that there are 5 rows in 1inch. That is, 15 3 = 5)


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Now What?

O k, say youve knit your swatch with the yarn and needles youwant to use. Now you should have some numbers ready for thatformula mentioned earlier. For example, Ive used Knit Picks

Alpaca Cloud yarn on US000 needles and found that I have toknit approximately:

14 stitches = 1 inch6 rows = 1 inch

Write this down on a piece of paper youll be consulting itO FTEN.


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D oing Math All Night Long

Next, whip out your calculator along with your measuring tape,because youre going to be taking a wild trip down memory laneright back into Mr. Branstons 7 th grade Algebra class.


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Good: D olls MeasurementsWith the measuring tape you want to take your lucky* dollsmeasurements. I typically look for the following:

} Circum ference around upper torso (bust) underneath the arms.} Circum ference around waist} Circum ference around upper hips} Length from neck/shoulder to armpit} Length o f arm from shoulder to the point where you want the sleeves

to end} Length from shoulder to point around waist/hip area where you want

the sweater to end} Circum ference around neck or where the neckline is going to be

Theres a bunch of other measurements that you may find you need totake depending on the pattern, but these are good ones to start with.

*Lucky cuz she/hes going to be getting her/his very own knitted jumper by yours truly no,not yours as in ME, but yours as in Y O U!


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Better: Your D olls Best-FittingSweaters Measurements

Every doll has a sweater (or a t-shirt or some top) thatfits beautifully. You could just measure THAT to figure

out the math that will produce the best fittingsweater for that specific doll. Its a lot easier tomeasure a sweater than a slippery resin doll thatdoesnt want to sit still. Lay the sweater flat andmeasure the front across the bust and multiply it by 2to get the circumference. D o the same for the waist.

Measure the sweater from the shoulder to the hemand then measure the sleeves from the shoulder tothe hem. And there you have it! The measurementsfor the perfect sweater for your beloved doll!


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Lets say that your dolls upper torso/bust measurement is 9.5inches. Taking your numbers from your test gauge, you willmultiply the number of ST ITCHES per inch in your swatch by 9.5inches (example: 14 X 9.5 = 133 stitches) this is how manystitches that youll need on your needles to knit a fabric bigenough to fit your dolls chest. Likewise, if the total length of thesweater needs to be 7 inches long , then youre going to multiple7 inches by the number of R O WS in an inch from your swatch

(example: 7 X 6 = 42 Rows). Brilliantly simple, yes?

O n With the Math


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Uh O h!However, things can get pretty complicated pretty fast!If the waist measures 8.5 inches, then youre going toneed only 119 stitches by the time you get to the waistline youll need to D ECREASE the number of stitchesfrom 133 to 119 if you want a fitted sweater. If its 3.5inches to the waistline from the bustline, you multiply 3.5inches by the number of R O WS it takes to knit 1 inch(3.5 x 6 = 21 rows). So somewhere within the 21 rows ofknitting between the bustline and the waistline, youneed to lose 14 stitches (133-119=14). Unless you wantyour sweater to look like someone tied a string tightly

around the waist line, youll want to decrease these 14stitches evenly on both sides, and gradually down eachrow.


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Whoa M O RE Monkeys!Yeah, you knew it was too good to be that simple, right? Well, itspartially, maybe even mostly true. But theres all these lovely littlevariables that can throw a monkey wrench into your work suchas:

} Intricate cables or lace or other design stitches will requirethat your test swatch has the same cables and lace anddesign stitches because cables and lace and other designstitches may contract or expand your swatch in very

unexpected ways. That 16 stitches to the inch that you knit instockinette in your test gauge is useless if youre trying apatterned knit because 16 stitches in stockinette is wider than16 stitches in a cable stitch. Much wider.


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WMM, cont.} Knitwear designers L OV E to concoct complexinstructions that means youll have to practically cook your brain down to the stem in order to figure out howyour new numbers fit into the scheme of things. Thingslike increase stitches evenly by 23 which may have

made sense when you were knitting a human sweater,but suddenly makes N O sense if youre knitting for adoll and 23 stitches in your yarn would add like 5inches to your dolls sweater which was fittingbeautifully up until that point. . I really dont have ananswer to that. I sometimes spend days stumped bythose instructions before I figured it out, or figured

something else out to substitute for the writteninstructions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt.Its all about my knitting skills, which isnt as advancedas some may think. Some day these things will makesense, but right now I havent figured it out yet. Thank Goodness for the Internet and Google, right?


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WMM, cont.} Necklines that stretch when knit in human-sized

sweaters doesnt always work so well when knitdoll-sized because our dolls heads are sometimes

rather big. I almost always have to re-figurenecklines. It isnt fun yet. Maybe someday it willbe

} Hand openings ditto.} Fitted sweaters are great unless you have rigid,

unyielding, and inflexible resin limbs. Nuff said.} Lots and lots of other things that you dont think of

until youre all done with your labor of love andare unsucessfully trying to put something on your doll. Hindsight is such a pain sometimes!


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Human PatternsO k, on to human patterns. Pick up a copy of InterweaveKnits or some other knitting magazine or a knit book fromthe library, and youll find some really gorgeous sweatersthat youd love to knit for your dolly. But you see that itsgoing to be HUM O NGU O US on your doll if you knit itaccording to how its written. You need to do someresizing, and that will require the test swatch and all thatfun math stuff.

Most of the time there will also be a very handy andsimple diagram of the sweater in your book or magazine. Sometimes there will also be somemeasurements printed on it.


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D raw or trace that diagram onto a sheet of paper, and thensimply swap your dolls measurement (or your dolls PerfectSweaters measurements) for the ones printed on the pattern.This will give you a visual guide as to what youre going to beknitting. Next, take the pattern and swap out the number ofstitches needed to create your dolls sweater from all that mathyou did previously for the ones printed in the pattern. For example, the human sweater might say C O 180 stitches. Youknow that at 14 stitches to the inch you wont need that many. If

your dolls hem (most sweaters are knit from the bottom up) onlyrequires 11.5 stitches, then youll only need to cast on 161stitches. Pretty cool, huh?!


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Thats All I Have, FolksSo, thats all the wisdom that I can shareabout resizing things for your doll. It isnt thewhole story and Im sure Im missing someimportant things, and it may not even be100% correct, but its a start, and it works for me (so far). Hope this information is helpful for

you or will at least give you a renewedappreciation for all those talented knitters outthere that makes INCRE DI BLE knitwear for our dolls. I know Im still very much in awe!Remember, its a lot of work, a labor of love. I dont know how everyone else feels, but I loveit and Ive committed 2011 to be all aboutAdventures in Knitting !

Happy Knitting to You All!~Tinooseus!(aka Tina, Ms. Moser, Tinoose, Hana Soahsmom....)

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