One of the most frustrating things in knitting is finishing a garment and finding that it doesn’t fit. There are a few really simple things that you can do before you even get started on your next sweater to make sure that it fits the way you want it to.

1. Swatch.
This may seem obvious, and it’s my hope that to most of you it IS obvious. To the rest of you fair readers, SWATCH!  The reason that swatching is so important is that the gauge swatch is the basis for the math of the entire sweater. If your gauge is off, the fit of your sweater will be off. There’s no way around it, you must make sure that your gauge matches that of the sweater pattern.

Here’s an example:

• Let’s say you want a sweater with a finished bust measurement of 38 inches, at a gauge of 5 stitches per inch, for a total of 190 stitches at bust.
  
  If you swatch and get 5.25 stitches per inch, your sweater will actually measure just 34.5 inches at the bust and will be way too small. Even that seemingly minute difference in gauge [1/4 of a stitch per inch] will drastically change the outcome of your finished sweater.

2. Take your honest figure measurements.
Whatever you do, don’t choose a size based on your off-the-rack clothing size, or on the notion that you’re an XS, M, or XXL. Measure yourself and believe the measuring tape. I’m guilty of this, too. I always think I’m an XL. When I go to the store, I always grab the XL to try on, no matter what. In knitting, we have the luxury of controlling every single stage of the production of our garments. You’re not buying clothing from a factory, you’re taking the time to make yourself what could be a totally custom-fit garment, and you deserve to have it fit YOU.

In addition to the common horizontal measurements, also take the following vertical measurements:

• shoulder-to-bust
• bust-to-waist
• waist-to-high-hip
• high-hip-to-hip

You know where to take your horizontal measurements; now measure the distances between them height-wise on your body.

3. Assess the pattern before you get started.
Before you even pick up the needles, pick up a pencil and paper and grab a calculator. (This is easy, trust me!) You can tell a lot about the potential fit of the garment from the schematic. You’ll know what the bust, waist, and hip measurement are going to be, how long the sleeves are, sometimes even how long the body is and how wide the neckline will be. On really great schematics, you’ll even know how deep the armholes will be. These are all very important things to note, and absolutely essential to use in deciding which size to knit, and what adjustments in stitch counts you’ll have to make. BUT what you often won’t see in the schematic is where the bust, waist, and hip will fall on your body in vertical space. Will the bust of the sweater hit you at YOUR bust? Will the waistline hit you at YOUR waist?

What I want  you to do is take a closer look at the pattern, make sure that the shaping of the pattern will line up with the shaping of your body.

Bust height: If the vertical distance from your shoulder to the fullest part of your bust is 10 inches, count the pattern rows from bust to shoulder (or shoulder to bust if working from the top down), divide by your row gauge, and make sure that this equals 10 inches. If you’re having trouble determining where this is in the pattern, look for the row just above the start of the waist shaping, or the last row of “straight knitting” between armhole and waist shaping. This is typically the row that a designer will consider “bust height.”  

Waist length: Count the number of pattern rows from shoulder to waist. Divide by your row gauge and compare this number to your waist height (shoulder-to-bust plus bust-to-waist). [Be careful here, because you don’t want to know how far below the pattern’s bust the pattern’s waist is...you want to know where it falls from the shoulder. Since you might be changing the bust height, it’s not really fixed in space the way that the shoulder is. The shoulder is your anchor.]

Hip height: Find the point in the pattern where the hip shaping stops (if working top-down. Where it starts if working bottom-up) and compare this to your own high-hip-height.

4. Make alterations to the pattern if you need to.
The small alterations to the placement in vertical space of the bust, waist, and hip can make a night-and-day transformation in the fit of your garments. This is the tricky part, but it’s probably less tricky than you think it will be. You’ll be comparing the pattern’s bust, waist, and hip placement to your own, and deciding what if any changes you need to make. This is easier to do on a less textural sweater, or one with side shaping, where the shaping isn’t an integral part of the overall stitch-patterning. If the shaping is an integral part of the sweater, you might not be able to unobtrusively alter the shaping.

Bust:

• If the pattern’s bust is too high, lengthen the region of straight knitting between armhole and bust.
• If the pattern’s bust is too low, shorten the region of straight knitting between armhole and bust.
  

NOTE: If you change the location of the bust by lengthening or shortening the sweater at this point, you’re also lowering or raising the position of the waist. Add or subtract this number of rows to / from the sweater’s waist height.

Waist:
If the pattern’s waist is too high or too low, you’ll have to move it up or down so that it hits your body at the right spot. This means that you’ll have to create your own rate of decrease from bust to waist, and use that in place of the pattern’s original shaping. This takes a little math, but it’s not bad! (If the math below blows your mind, don’t worry! There are lots of great resources that you can use to walk through it in more detail, like the books of Ysolda Teague and Amy Herzog as well as online classes like my Fit Your Knits and Marly Bird’s Curvy Knits: Plus-Sized Knitting)

Here’s an example:

• Example Gauge: 5 sts and 7 rows per inch
• Bust measurement in inches: 38 ( x stitch gauge =190 stitches)
• Waist measurement in inches: 34 ( x stitch gauge = 170 stitches)
• Distance from bust to waist: 6 inches ( x row gauge = 42 rows)

So, you have 42 rows over which you’ll decrease 20 stitches to get you from your desired bust measurement to your desired waist measurement.

Typically, waist shaping is worked in sets of 4 decreases per round: two decreases at 2 side markers. (If working flat, 2 stitches per decrease row, on both front and back pieces.)

Divide the total number of stitches to be decreased by 4 to get the number of decrease rows / rounds that you’ll need to work.

20 divided by 4 is 5, meaning 5 total decrease rounds.

Because there are 42 total rows from bust to waist, divide 42 by 5 to see how often you need to work a decrease row. 42 divided by 5 is 8, with a remainder of two. This means that you’d work a decrease row every 8th row, with two rows (the remainder) on which you just work straight (no increases or decreases.

NOTE: These calculations also allow you to substitute your desired waist circumference for that of the pattern and make any changes to that at the same time. In the example above, if you’d prefer a waist measurement of 35 inches, you could substitute that number in, change the number of stitches that you’ll decrease from bust to waist and calculate a new number of decrease rows.

Changing distance from waist to hip:
This math is exactlty the same as what we’ve done above, except that instead of calculating the number of stitches to decrease from bust to waist, and the associated number and placement of the decrease rows, you’re calculating increases and increase rows.

Here’s a quick example:

• Example Gauge: 5 sts and 7 rows per inch
• Waist measurement in inches: 34 ( x stitch gauge = 170 stitches)
• Hip measurement in inches: 40 ( x stitch gauge = 200 stitches)
• Distance from bust to waist: 4 inches ( x row gauge = 28 rows)

So, you have 28 rows over which you’ll increase 30 stitches to get you from your desired waist measurement to your desired hip measurement.

Typically increases are worked in sets of 4, so divide 30 by 4 = about 7, meaning 7 total increase rounds.

The total number of rows (28) divided by 7 (number of increase rounds) = 4. SO, every 4th row from waist to hip is an increase round.

Making these simple adjustments can dramatically improve the fit of any garment, and it’s really worth it to take the time to look at your pattern before you start knitting to see if you need to make any changes.

5. Add in Bust Darts
There are so many great sources of information on bust darts that I’m not going to go into them in too much detail here. (Be sure to read Big Girl Knits by Jillian Moreno and Amy Singer, and Knitty articles by Bonne Marie Burns, Jenna Wilson, as well as the Ravelry group “The BustLine” which is just full of helpful knitters and great resources.

If you notice that your sweaters tend to ride up in front, you’ll probably benefit from adding darts to future knits. As I said above, there’s lots of information out there as to how to work bust darts in the round. You simply measure how much your sweaters ride up (the difference between back length and front length) and how wide you want each dart to be, and then figure out how many rows you need to add in order to bring the front of that sweater down where you want it to be, and how to fit them in at the side of the bust. Then, when knitting a pullover, you work back and forth across the front of the sweater until you’ve essentially crated a little pocket for your chest.

Working bust darts in a cardigan is no more difficult than working them in a pullover, but in case you haven’t done them before, here’s a bit of insight into how the process works:

Start out by performing your standard bust dart calculations. Here’s a quick example of how to do the math, but again, if this looks like mud you may need to investigate a little bit further [see the recommended links above] for some more in-depth background and explanation as to how bust darts function.

Example:

• Example Gauge: 5 sts and 7 rows per inch
  Length to add to front (depth of dart): 2” multiplied by row gauge = 14 total rows, 7 sets of short rows.
  Each set of short rows is worked over two total rows, so we can divide our total number by 2 to determine the number of wrap and turns at each side.
  
  
• Width of bust dart: 4” multiplied by stitch gauge = 20 stitches.
  20 divided by 7 = about 3. So we work a wrap & turn every 3rd stitch.
  Dividing the number of stitches in the dart’s width by the number of wrap & turns at each side gives us the number of stitches between each wrap & turn.
  
  

Let’s assume that you’re knitting a cardigan (like my Shapely Boyfriend in this issue of Knitty) and want to add in some darts. You’d do the math above, subbing in your own gauge and measurements. After you work the “Separate the sleeves from the Body” section of the pattern, There are a few inches of straight knitting before the waist shaping starts. This is the perfect spot in which to insert your darts. If this straight area is 4 inches long in your size, and your dart is 2 inches high, knit for 2 inches, then start your dart. (If this straight area is 4 inches long in your size, and your dart is 4 inches high, start your dart right away.)

The main difference in how a set of darts is worked in a top-down cardigan as compared to how they’re worked in a pullover is that you’ll work one whole dart first on one front of of the sweater, and then work the second whole dart on the other front of the sweater.

Working the first dart:
Start knitting a right side row, and knit all the way over to the point at which you’ll make your first wrap & turn. Wrap & turn, and then purl all the way back to the front edge. Turn, and knit over to the second wrap & turn. Wrap & turn, and then purl all the way back to the front edge. Keep going until you’ve done all your wrap & turns, then knit all the way around to the opposite front edge.

Working the second dart:
The second dart may be a bit intimidating because you’re ready to start on a WS row. All you do is repeat the process for the first dart, only now you purl all the way over to the point at which you’ll make your first wrap & turn. Wrap & turn, and then knit all the way back to the front edge. Turn, and purl over to the second wrap & turn. Wrap & turn, and then knitall the way back to the front edge. Keep going until you’ve done all your wrap & turns. You’re ready to carry on with the pattern instructions for the rest of the sweater.

If you’ve done bust darts in a pullover before and are hesitating to try them in a cardigan, just give it a shot. It will make sense as soon as you do that first wrap and turn.

I hope that my five simple-yet-somewhat-verbose tips to creating great-fitting sweaters have helped to take some of the mystery out of getting a great fit from your sweaters.

Stefanie Japel has been part of the online knitting community since she started blogging as "Glampyre" in 1999 while working on a PhD in Geology. Now, Stefanie has turned crafting into a career and has joined the team at Craftsy.com where she not only teaches knitting classes but also works on the Marketing team.

To read about Stefanie's crafty adventures, visit her website.