Where is your waist?

I taught a "Get Fit" class last weekend and a question I always ask is "where is your waist?" Are you laughing yet?

We all know where our natural waist is. It's where you bend if you bend yourself to the side. You can also easily put your hand on your waist at your lower back. 

BUT... is that where your torso is narrowest when you look in the mirror? If your narrow part is at your natural waist, congrats. If not, you can still create a waist in your sweater.

There is no point in your sweater coming in at your natural waist if your body no longer goes in there. You are not alone here. I'm right with you. I am narrowest a couple of inches above my natural waist. You may be narrowest just below your bust. That's OK too. 

We're going to call this narrow spot in your torso your "sweater waist". That's where you can work some shaping into your sweater.

You can work decreases at the side seam (imaginary side seam if you're working in the round), one decrease on each side of the Front and one decrease on each side of the Back. That decreases your sweater body by 4 sts, approximately 3/4" in the medium gauges of yarn. I think working two sets of these decreases makes a very nice indent for your sweater waist. How far apart you work the 2 sets of decreases depends on how much room you have to work with. If you are putting your waist right under your bust you can work rows/rounds for 1/2" and do the second set of decreases. If you have more room on your torso to work you can work 1" of rows/rounds or more between decreases.

Work straight for 1" to 2" and then work the increases in the same manner back to the original number of stitches. You've created a lovely curve to your sweater.

The GOOD NEWS is that you can create a waist in your garment even if you don't have one. Your sweater is fairly stiffish fabric when finished and it will hold a curve for you. Yay.

If you don't have a waist in the front, you can work a waist on the Back only because all of us have a dip at the small of our back. This also makes a nice curve in your sweater.

If you need more room in the body Front, you know who you are, you can work the increases on the Front only, to accommodate a round belly. This also creates a curve and a better fit for your sweater.

A curvy sweater is better looking on everyone than a boxy sweater. If the pattern doesn't have some shaping built in then I would put some in. Create a curve. Even a small curve will make you look sensational in your sweater.

Do you add shaping? Tell me about it.

Happy shaping,
Deb

P.S. t_a So glad to hear from you. I'm glad to know you're lurking.

Ribbing for waist shaping

I'm not a shopper but I do venture out occasionally for an afternoon with my friend to wander and see if anything catches our eye. We can hit the expensive stores then and shuffle through the racks looking at garment shapes and style, under the eye of suspicious sales persons, without any thought of buying. On one of our excursions we found a beautiful sweater with the look of a frock coat. It comes in at the upper back above the waist and then fans out again. It was a long sweater which I don't intend to make but when we were looking at this sweater with the centre back panel we thought that pinching it in just above the waist by working straight ribbing might give a similar affect. 

- Cotton Tweed Just Navy

This ribbing is just above my waist, although even to me, it doesn't look like it in the photo. I put ribbing in at the sides too but the jury is out on that. It may be coming out. Not sure yet.

Now I have several more inches to work until I'll know if this is going to work. Patience, I hear it's a virtue. I read a quote which if I can remember correctly goes like this: It is not necessary to have Patience it is only necessary to wait. So I'm waiting and knitting.
- Deb

Shape it for your figure

I finished my waist shaping and am happy with the results. I worked the increases so that the hip is a bit wider than the Bust. Also more increases on the hip were worked on the Back than the Front which works for my figure on a closer fitting top.

As you might imagine, waist and hip shaping can be endlessly adjusted. On this top I've made the Front 3" wider than the Back to accommodate the bust. The Front is on the right and you can see that it's slightly wider.

With a Belly:  I worked decreases to bring the waist in. I did the same number of decreases on the Front as I did for the Back. At the waist the Front is still 3" wider than the Back. This fits my figure.

No Belly:  If you don't have a belly then you might want to work more decreases on the Front to get to a place where the Front and Back have the same stitch count. You could start working decreases on the Front as soon as you knit past the largest part of the bust. You can work these decreases every 2, 3 or 4 rounds. When the Front and Back have the same stitch count the top will be 3" smaller than it was at the Bust. That might be enough shaping. But if you can, still work the waist shaping on the Front & Back as usual too.

Hips:  At the waist begin to work increases until the hips are the same width as the bust. Then you can work a couple more sets of increases if desired, to give you more hip room, as I did. I also, as mentioned, worked more increases on the Back than I did on the Front, to accommodate my back end. That gets me closer to the same number of stitches on the Front and Back.

No Hips:  You can work the increases to the width you need around your hips. Make sure you give yourself a couple of inches of ease so that the top doesn't bind at the hip.

Every sweater can teach you how to get closer to a good fit. What has worked for you?
-Deb