January 31, 2003

Think hee-haw, but with knitting.

The tweed coat I'm knitting for my son is so much fun to knit! I'm loving it. I've done the back, one of the front sides, and the sleeves. This jacket is asymmetrical, and requires so much shaping (particularly for the right front side) that I feel like I'm doing a square dance with squeaky violin accompaniment and a caller twanging out the instructions. "Swing your needles round and round, round and round. Make your buttonholes nice and neat, nice and neat. Now decrease five times to the left, to the left, and shape the raglan at the right, at the right..."

The best part of it is that I had to reconstruct the pattern completely in length, and rework increases for sleeves, decreases for raglan shaping, placement of buttonholes, as well as the shaping to create the curving right front side. I don't know how my mathematically-challenged brain did it. I'm not talking one cm here and one cm there - I had to add on a considerable number of cm in length throughout the jacket, but leave the pattern as is width-wise. Why? Because after a visit with the pediatrician on Wednesday, I've discovered that my son is no longer 7cm above the average height for toddlers his age, but a whopping 10 cm. He's 29 months old, but the same height as an average 3 and a half year old kid! Yet his weight is the way it should be for a 29-month-old toddler. Which means that I must rework all patterns to suit his stretchy, lanky frame. I think I've given birth to Lurch.

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4 comments to this entry:

yes! I've got a v long, v lean one here, too. so far, I've been able to get away with just adding the extra inch here & there to his sweaters, but I'm sure that total sweater reconstruction is in my future as mama-knitter. guess I'd better get cracking on learning knitting math! (but isn't it so nice to have stuff that actually *fits* them?).

[daria on 31 jan 03 @ 06:58 pm]

You're sweater is looking so good! It is weird to see your pictures though - they look just like mine. Too bad I didn't start the red jacket first, then it wouldn't look like we were just posting the same pics all the time! ;-) Bravo on making it through the resizing so far! Although my boys are also tall for their age (and particularly for their weight), they're still only 18 mo., so I'm hoping that the generous 2 yo size in the pattern will work for them. Fingers crossed!

[alison on 31 jan 03 @ 09:22 pm]

All three of my girls were (are) built like that. It made for many tears in the dressing room while trying to find pants that had tiny waists and long legs. [sigh] So, you did it in French, and changed the math. That makes me tired just thinking about it.

[Janet on 31 jan 03 @ 10:43 pm]

is he considering a job in the NBA? :) that's a whole lot of resizin' to be doin' m'dear. you definitely owe yourself a drink!!

[carolyn on 01 feb 03 @ 06:35 pm]

January 31, 2003

Think hee-haw, but with knitting.

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