knitting maunderings... Mom sweaters!

(cross-posted from my LJ)

Part-way through the Netflix movie my Mom called to tell me she'd (finally) gotten her Christmas surprise in the mail... the sweater! While I was concerned when I was making it that it would be too large (esp since it was too big for me when I tried it on) when Mom took it out of the box she was worried it was too small. Fortunately we were both wrong and it fits 'just right'. Hooray for boob darts! Mom also says that her cat Susie tried to steal the sweater to sleep in, so even if Mom doesn't like it or it pills like crazy I know someone who will love it. :) I must get a picture of Mom modelling it.

I'm really glad she likes the Ribbi Cardi, as it is a good deal plainer than the typical sweater that she goes for at the store. The boxy sweater pattern that she requested ages ago is residing, marked up, in one of my knitting bags. Eesh. It has a 38" circumference and my Mom has a 41" bust, so I've been trying to figure out the best way to alter the pattern. I could just increase the whole business by about 20% and hope, but I'm thinking that the ginormous boxyness of it would Not Be Flattering, and then she wouldn't wear it. I'm not going to knit a complex cotton cabled box if she's not going to wear it, thanks. (I suppose we *could* turn it into a pillow, but it seems such a waste!) It occurred to me that I could try and repeat my boob dart trick with this pattern, but I might need engineering help on that. Mucho pondering and some math will ensue.

The basic problem with this sweater was that someone decided to Get Creative and designed a modular sweater pattern. The front of the sweater looks like four triangles joined to form a square, with a giant diagonal X in the middle.. Colorblocking means that the top and bottom of the X are light blue or white, while the side panels are a darker shade. I'm sure Mom was using swimsuit logic, that this would make her look slimmer... which it would. If this was 'just' stockinette, I'm sure I could wrangle the blocks to include boob darts. However, each triangle also has a cabling pattern to go with it, knit up from the base of the triangle to the point. So, I could conveniently 'lose' the cabling part on the side panels to accomodate the bust darts, I could futz with adding length to some of the triangles to get a bulge, or I could just scream and start over with a pattern of my own. (You can see why I've not worked on this since last July.) Screaming sounds good at the moment, though I may scribble a bit more just to see if the idea is completely ludicrous and get it out of my head.

I *did* do a little more on the sock cuff last night, but it still looks largely like the below picture, so I didn't feel a burning urge to photograph it. Maybe later when it's got the exciting bits of heel construction going on! :)