musings of a male knitter

Carlito Cardigan by Mathew Gnagy

Here’s another designer whose men’s garments I really like.  This sweater blew me away when I saw it on Ravelry.  The back is as stunning as the front.  And the pattern is free!  Mathew has several other very attractive men’s designs on his Ravelry page where his username is dzinrbear.  Another free pattern that is definitely on my projects list is his Tapered Staghorn Hat. The Brit Lit Vest appeared in KnitScene  Fall 2010, and although it is shown on a woman, it would look very good on a man as well.  The shaping on the sides accented with cables really looks sharp.  I contacted Mathew and he said that nothing in the vest’s design would compromise it as a man’s garment. It was designed with  lengths  scaled for women’s average heights, so some men might have to add rows for extra length.  But beyond that, it would work out well for a man’s shape too.

Tapered Staghorn Hat

The absolutely fantastic news is that Mathew has a new book coming out in 2011 published by Interweave Press.  Now that is something that is worth watching for!

Late in 2009, I decided I wanted to design a form fitting knitted tee shirt. “Design” may be too weighty of a word…it makes it sound like I know more than I do.  Let’s just say I wanted to start experimenting  with  some prototypes and go from there.  While there are lots of sweaters, vests, henleys, etc., there are very few…and I mean *very* few…designs for knitted shirts.  In fact, the few patterns I found were vintage patterns and just sort of blah.  I wanted something more.  Also, I really wanted to make it out of  fingering weight, but was  having trouble finding a yarn suitable (a cotton blend) in that weight.  I settled for a sport weight, using Knit Picks Comfy.  I wanted to try making  it in the round, so I decided to try a raglan prototype.  Here’s the result.

First try at a raglan shirt design

Humm…it’s wearable,  so it’s not that bad, but it’s not what I was aiming for.  It’s not much above the ho-hum basic knitted shirt. But it is comfortable! Starting wide, and going narrow for the waist, then increasing again for the chest did give it the form fitting shape I wanted.  But it looks like an hour glass (feminine) rather than a V (masculine) shape.  Okay…tuck in the shirttail!  Note to self:  Next time, crop the length and make it the narrow width to begin with.    The directions I used for the raglan shaping came from Jacqueline Fee’s The Sweater Workshop, which called for 1 1/2 inches of straight knitting rounds before starting the raglan shaping.

Next time--cut out the 1.5 inches before the the raglan decrease to snug up sleeve

Hummm….that makes the shirt body pucker at the sleeve join.  Next time…cut out the 1 1/2 inches and start the raglan shaping right away.  Collar flares out in back some…too flimsy.  Solution: Bind off neck stitches and pick up stitches  for neckline knittting rather than use held  live stitches.  And don’t use the elastic bind-off next time.   Finally, sleeves are too long.  Cut off about four inches in length.

I’ve not decided whether to rip out down to the sleeve/body join and redo the top of the shirt and sleeves, which means I could make all the changes but those in  the shirt-tail area.  Or just make another shirt with all the changes.

Or maybe  I will  just move on… to a fingering weight, and experiment knitting one continuous piece back and forth, from bottom of back, up to sleeve area with additional cast ons on each side for sleeves, bind off for head hole, cast on those stitches on next row, decrease the stitches that form the sleeve and finish knitting the front.  Seam the sleeves and sides.  I will crop the bottom and make it form fitting at the waist.

I’ll let you know how that one turns out…but give me several months!  I have way too many WIP right now!