Knit to Flatter Worksheet

After five years of radio silence… I’m still not coming back to blogging about knitting. Or maybe I am! Who knows! The world is a mysterious place!

The point being, I’ve got something to share, and this is probably the easiest way to do that.

I got Amy Herzog’s fantastic book Knit to Flatter two Christmases ago, and then I did… nothing with it. I don’t even know. I looked at the patterns and loved them, but although I measured myself at the time and filled in the worksheet, I guess it just wasn’t a very sweater-y period in my life. Which is just as well, because I lost a bunch of weight, as I discovered when I unearthed the book recently. Plus, I couldn’t be bothered to do the math every. Single. Time.

So I made the math for always. And let me tell you, suddenly the sweaters I made started fitting perfectly. The world is a mysterious place.

So without further ado, here is the Excel version of the Knit to Flatter chapter 1 worksheet, except that this version calculates your stitch and row count for you, and has a couple of Elizabeth Zimmermann percentages that I use all the time. Just take a measuring tape to yourself and your gauge swatch, plug the numbers into the yellow fields, and knit away!

[Right-click, save link as!]

(For y’all Americans out there, just toggle to the second sheet for a version that uses inches.)

I guess this is a good time to mention that I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with Amy Herzog, that I make no profit off this, and that you should definitely buy her book for the excellent advice and beautiful patterns. I just don’t see why other people should have to do the math when I’ve already done it.

 

A Tale of Two Mittens

With only two weeks to go until I have to hand in my Bachelor’s thesis, I’ve been experiencing a serious case of startitis. And a bit of finish-it-up-itis, which is nice.

In the course of this, I recently finished a pair of Gryffindor mittens, nothing fancy: I did some corrugated ribbing for the wrist, took the chart from the House Bag pattern, and continued the checkerboard pattern on the palm. They’re awesome and I can’t wait to wear them, but I also learned a couple of things from them, and when my roomie and a good friend of mine both asked for a pair of House Mittens, I figured this might be a good opportunity to document my designing process, on the off-chance that others might be able to learn from my mistakes.

So, I present you with the first installment of:

Part One: Gathering wool. And books, and some more ideas, and general information.