Cabin Fever Sisters Knit

Laurie (from the comments) brought up the topic of short rows to shape the bust. The reason to work short rows is to put more length on the Front of your garment so that it doesn't pull up at the waist. If your bust has taken up enough of the vertical length you will be left a couple inches short at the bottom.

It works by making a wedge of fabric just under your bust and really works wonders for the fit of your sweater. This wedge can be added into most patterns you're working on. This is the best tutorial I found on the subject Bust Short Rows by Knotions. She works it from the bottom up starting with long short rows which get smaller and smaller. I would differ on how to do them from the Top Down.

From the Top Down it could work like this:  Work your sweater down to the underarm. Work straight to past the largest part of your bust. Working from the side seam, knit across the first breast to the second breast point + 1", Wrap & Turn. You can imagine this by looking down at your chest and reading this at the same time to get the idea. With the wrong side facing, purl back across to 1" past the other breast point, W&T. Now continue to work the short rows, working the wrap and stitch together when you come to it and knitting 1 or 2 sts past, W&T at the end of each row. You are working closer and closer to the side seam and the short rows are getting longer and longer. When you have enough rows of fabric you would resume working the sweater as before.

I'm no artist but I hope that gives you some idea of how it works. How much fabric do you need? In the tutorial Knitting Notions measures from the shoulder down to the waist Beside your bust. And then takes the same measurement Over the bust. The difference is how much extra fabric you need. I thought that was a very good way to work it out. How much fabric you need, worked out to the number of rows needed, will tell you where you have to start and stop. If you need 3" of material worked in short rows then working from the bottom up you need to start them at least 4" below your bust points. Working from the top you would start 1" below where you measure the largest.

I know Laurie has tried this and although she didn't get them in exactly the right spot they did make a terrific difference to the fit of her sweater. So even if they're not perfect they do work. Interesting, eh?

-Deb