Summer Knits: 4. Bust Shaping

You may have noticed that as I've been making more clothes for myself of late I've been paying a little more attention to how they might actually fit rather than blindly following the pattern. My current knitting project is no exception.

Reading around on the internet I recently came across the concept of bust shaping when knitting jumpers. The theory is that if you knit the front and the back of the jumper the same then the front will look too short because it has further to travel than the back thanks to the bust. If you have a bust larger than a B cup then it's sometimes recommended to add little extra length to the front of the jumper to compensate for this. You do this by adding some short rows across the front, which gives the same effect as adding a dart when sewing a top.

Short rows are a simple concept - you simply turn your work round before you reach the end of the row and start working back the other way. This means that you have two rows over that part of your knitting, and only one row over the remainder.

Theory aside, I thought I might give this a go, but because I'm a coward I've only adding a little bit extra - not the full amount - so that I could see how it works without going crazy. I started knitting the patterned part 2cm later than the pattern suggested and then added 6 short rows, starting just before the pattern reaches its widest point. With the cardigan I had to knit the short rows on the right front part, finish the row and then do short rows to match on the left hand side.

It turns out this is a very hard thing to photograph - it disappears!
Just to the right of my index finger the stitches change angle, this is the extra
rows being put in.

and the same on the left front.

I think its gone well. The bit I'm least satisfied with was how to do the final turn which happened to fall just at the edge of my lacy pattern. On the right hand front the turns happened on the right side of the knitting which I adapted by skipping the last bit of the pattern and starting it again on the next row which seems to have left a knobbly bit. On the left hand front the turns happened on the wrong side of the knitting (a simple purl row) which was much easier to adapt and has left a neater finish I think. Sorry if that made no sense at all!

Having done this once I'm pretty sure I'd do this again, and maybe with a bit more confidence on my next jumper. Lets face it - this isn't going to make much difference to the way the cardigan fits.

Either way, that's now done - on with the pattern!

Previously: 3. A long weekend of progress
Next: 5. Must there be two?