Designing I

I've been working on designing a sweater, and I thought I'd give you some insight on how my mind works through a design challenge. In this instance, the designing started with a specific yarn - one I have in my stash, Bendigo Cotton. Bendigo Woollen Mills is located in Australia, and I bought this yarn from them directly (which as far as I know is the only way you can buy it if you live in the United States - unless you go there). They make beautiful, relatively inexpensive, yarn. I've had the cotton in my stash for at least 6 or 7 years - maybe longer.

Anyway, I knew that I needed a summer cardigan for those chilly moments in theaters, office buildings, etc. So I started playing around with swatches. My first thought was that I wanted it to be a simple stockinette stitch garment. So that was my first swatch (on the right in the above photo). Then I started thinking about how to accomodate my hips that are larger than my bust. I've been working on my 7-year afghan for a long time (at least 7 years, but probably longer) using a modular pattern in which you cast on 15 sts, then by using decreases at the center you form a diamond-shaped piece. This creates a curved edge, and I thought it would be interesting to use a similar technique at several spots at the bottom edge of the cardigan, thereby being able to cast on enough stitches to accomodate my ample hips (which my OB/GYN says are "good for childbearing") and then decreasing to the waist. I didn't want to use stockinette for that so I decided to try it in moss stitch. Hence my 2nd swatch (on the left). I didn't get as much curve along the cast on edge, which I decided I could live with, but I wasn't sure I liked the way the decreases turned out. So I tried the panel in reverse stockinette (the middle swatch) - but I really didn't like the decreases in that.

After that, I decided that I had sufficiently swatched, and that I could start to figure out more details... I'll get into that next time.