Sunday, January 28, 2007

Zimmermann - Squid Style


Made this sweater for the Squid using yarn she chose (I offered 14 shades of red, 3 shades of pink, and then a "ok, grab what you want as long as there are 3 skeins of it." and she chose 2 shades of natural brown organic yarn from Full Belly Farm). Together we decided where the stripes should go. It was her idea to have the sleeves and majority of the yoke be the light color and the body be the darker color. I think it was a wise choice; I love the colors of this sweater.

I loosely followed Elizabeth Zimmermann's Seamless Yoke formula with some minor changes. One minor change was to eliminate all neck shaping - I'm a firm believer that all clothing for kids should be reversible. So I always either make the neck shaped for either side or eliminate shaping altogether. A yoke sweater begged to become a funnelneck so that's what I did.

I spread the yoke decreases out a bit further than EZ specifies. She suggests starting the decreases when you have reached half of the yoke's final height. I started a hair earlier than that, and if I were to do it again, I'd start even earlier. I feel like there's just a little bit too much room across the chest, especially when the kid is in motion. And my kid is almost always in motion.


I also spread the sleeve increases out a bit. Doing them as EZ specified left a too-bulky sleeve, in my opinion. Granted, the Squid is built like an average size 4T except for her height, so when I scale things for her they come out all wide and short. So it may be my kid's proportions that are off, not EZ's calculations.

All in all, I'm pleased to have made yet another classic piece from EZ's classic books. The Squid seems happy, too, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't even need to sneak in the photo. She did, however, request that I make sure to take a photo when her tongue was out and she wasn't looking at me. I was happy to comply.

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13 Comments:

Blogger Ellen Alexandra said...

Very cute! She has a great eye for color for her age!

10:12 PM  
Blogger Maartje said...

Absolut wonderful and so cutie, the sweater and your little girl!!
Happy Knitting!

6:24 AM  
Blogger opportunityknits said...

She's so cute. Love her colour sense and you've made the sweater to fit just right.

7:07 AM  
Blogger Tana said...

Very nice.

You might want to check out Priscilla Gibson-Roberts Knitting In the Old Way. She uses percentage methods like EZ but also tells you how to alter them to get a good fit for a given body style, which you kind of did. I think that book might add fuel to your fire (in a good way).

8:07 AM  
Blogger j a r e d said...

the squids got great taste in color!

10:41 AM  
Blogger amisha said...

this is fantastic! beautiful colors and the squid is super-cute :)

12:44 PM  
Blogger Dorothy said...

Great sweater! Squid has excellent taste in yarn and colour.

3:44 PM  
Blogger Miss Scarlett said...

Great sweater - what an intrinsic sense of style your little one has! Quite classic and simple.

2:45 AM  
Blogger Woman who knits said...

Great sweater! Looks so grown up in her big girl color!!!

4:03 PM  
Blogger Ashley said...

That's really pretty. She picks good yarn! (in a very quiet, non obtrusive tone of typing, how's the maternity sweater pattern coming along?)

10:39 PM  
Blogger Sue said...

My daughter has the same problem, things are never long enough but plenty wide. I absolutely adore the colors she chose, and the jumper looks fantastic on her. Well done on a great knit.

10:02 PM  
Blogger CraftyCarole said...

I think you have a future designer on your hands.. Love the sweater and it looks great on her!

1:03 PM  
Blogger CraftyCarole said...

OK... I have some Green's chocolate to send you. It's on the safe list for you :-) Our favorite I might add, so if you'd like it send me your addy... if not, I'll be happy to eat it! (it's the least I can do for the CP drop yarnover scarf pattern and your great waistband for the soaker that I've used- only once, but I loved it!)

1:14 AM  

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