I was a sophomore in college, with unexpected yarn money. My LYS had just closed, but I’d heard of a large yarn store in Providence. No driver’s license though. Coming to the yarn emergency rescue, my boyfriend drove up from NY, and offered to help me find that store in Providence. We got totally lost, but we found it, it was Yarntopia.
I hit the oddball basket first – all my first sweaters were designed around using up weird amounts of yarn no one else wanted. The basket had 5 skeins of a blue-red worsted weight cotton. I was smaller then, so that would do for me for a sweater, if it was short sleeved and cropped. I don’t mean can’t-stretch-your-arms-over-your-head-cropped, just not quiet reaching to the high hip. And there were other lovelies, including strange novelty cotton/silk blends with built in bobbles. Dan handed me more money, “Make my sister something pretty.” I grabbed more yarn. I think he had to help me get it all to the register.
As I was checking out, a customer in front of me had an extended lesson. I hadn’t realized that skill building was part of an LYS service, and I was surprised to hear the customer repeat, as if it were a catechism, “And even if the fire alarm goes off, finish the row so you know where you are.” that’s important? I used circulars, and figured out where I was in my home made charts by reading the fabric. Finally it was my turn to pay. The shop owner remarked how nice it was to have young customers, and Men! I got impish and started declaring that I made sweaters in the round, only in the round. (Sophomore does technically mean wise-fool, yes?) The LYS owner answered that of course, you can make sweaters in the round, but they were all sloppy in the shoulder, so why bother?
Humph. Use the word ALL to me, and I start searching for exceptions.
I bought Maggie Rhighetti’s Sweater Design in plain English that winter, it made me humph too – but I came to appreciate her notes about not working off EPS all the time, but measuring individual people. I’m not sure if it was her’s, but it’s also a good idea to measure their favorite sweaters that already fits them the way they like them to fit. She included a lot of math about set in sleeves. Come to think of it, I did like set in sleeves. Could I do them in the round?
to be continued…