Fit to flatter is a ten-part series of tutorials on choosing and modifying knitting patterns to flatter your shape. These tutorials will be released every two weeks both as blog posts (free) and as separate, professionally formatted PDF files for printing (nominal charge). Should you desire the PDFs, each installment can be purchased from the tutorial page as they are released, or via a “buy now” button at the end of the installment. Individual installments are US$2.00 and at the end of the tutorial series the whole series will be available for $US10.00. All text copyright Amy Herzog and all images copyright splityarn 2010, unless where otherwise noted. I hope you enjoy the series!

This ten-part series is not about making you feel badly about what you have already knit. It is not about making you feel badly about your shape, or about making you feel like you can only knit certain things, in certain yarns. In writing these tutorials, I want to help you learn basic principles for dressing the figure you have in the most flattering way possible.

Every person reading these words has both fabulous assets to show off and a thing or two that you wish would disappear forever (or, in some cases, appear forever). The fact is this: Though I won’t argue that we’d all be healthier if we exercised more, wearing flattering clothes will do much more to change the way you feel about your body than losing weight or gaining muscle will.

As knitters, we have the ultimate power of creating a piece of couture perfectly suited to our figures, every single time. Your hand-knits should make you look and feel like a million bucks, and not just because of the skill required to form the stitches. I want to help you get there.

In previous installments, I’ve gone over the general principles of dressing to not just fit, but flatter your shape. The first three installments were quite comprehensive and covered a lot of ground; in the next few I’ll cover individual topics in more detail. Today, we’ll get into the weeds and focus on the data you’ll need to create hand-knits perfect for your form. Future installments will explore different garment elements that can have a big impact on flattery. I’ll end the series with thoughts on advanced sweater modification and custom sweater design.

Please click through for the whole installment, which is 14 pages when formatted for printing. Thanks!

What’s Your Shape?

Most people will have an inkling about their own shape by this point. Most people will also be more than a little unsure of their own self-assessment. Our first order of business is a reliable way to gain confidence in your knowledge of your own shape. The most fun method, of course, is to get a large group of girlfriends over for dress-up and other opinions (ask me how I know). Failing that, it is possible to take a picture that doesn’t lie—and pictures have the advantage that you can draw on them. Here’s a step-by-step process:

1. Kick everyone out of the house (or at least the room you’re going to be shooting in).
2. Set up a tripod, stack of books, end table, etc. so that the camera is level with your chest and pointed at a fairly plain backdrop (wall, door, whatever).
3. Get yourself into something form-fitting. I think a tank top and yoga pants are great for this, but you can use what you want. Be sure to wear your usual foundational garments.
4. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, put your arms out to the side a little bit, and face the camera squarely.
5. Use the camera’s timer or a remote to take a picture.
6. Now, turn so that you’re perpendicular to the camera, put your arms down at your sides, and stand up straight.
7. Use the camera’s timer or a remote to take a picture.
8. Have a glass of wine if you think you need one. Download the pictures to your computer.

You’ll get two pictures that look something like this:

These pictures will probably go a long way toward helping you understand your own form. However, we’re not done yet. Print them both out, and grab a marker. Let’s deal with the facing shot first. You’re going to draw five lines on this picture of yourself.

The first, which will tell you the width of your torso, is the hardest to explain. Feel your collarbone, going from your neck to your arm. Almost all the way to your shoulder, you’ll feel a little knob of bone. Keeping in mind that I’m a theoretical mathematician and not a doctor, this knob is roughly where your collarbone attaches to the shoulder socket. It’s probably about where the outside of a tank-top’s sleeve openings are, or where your bra strap is. Draw a line from where one knob is straight across your chest to the other knob.

Draw a second line at the widest point of your bust. This line may or may not differ in width from your torso/shoulder line.

Draw a third line at the narrowest point of your waist. Note that this line can be anywhere from just below your bust all the way down to your hips—just take the narrowest point. If you’re straight up and down from bust to hips, draw the line at your bellybutton.
Draw a fourth line at your hips.

Draw a fifth line at your widest “bottom” point. This may be your hips (typical of a classic hourglass figure), your bum (typical of a classic pear-shaped figure), or your thighs (like my shape).

It may or may not be helpful to further add vertical lines, projecting the lengths of all other lines to the widest line (be it on top or bottom). This will depend on how different your lines are in length: If they’re drastically different, you probably won’t need dotted lines to compare. If they’re similar, you probably will.

My marked-up picture looks like this:

The comparison of the “top” lines (torso/shoulder and bust) and the “bottom” lines (hip and that widest line) will tell you whether you’re top-heavy, proportional, or bottom-heavy. As you can see, my shoulder/bust/waist/hip lines are all pretty proportional but my widest “bottom” line at my thighs is quite a bit larger, making me a bottom-heavy shape.

By looking at this front-on picture you can also learn whether you’re especially curvy or straight: Compare the difference in width between your waist line and your top and bottom lines, and notice how far apart they are vertically. As you can see, I’m sort of in the middle on the curvy/straight spectrum: I have a defined waist, but my curves are pretty gentle in their slope. The classic “short waist” or “long waist” terms in fashion refer to the total portion of body height that the waist curve takes. Someone whose curves zip in and out quickly would have a short waist; someone whose curves meander like mine have a long waist. This is different from the overall length of your torso.

This picture will also help you determine the overall proportion of torso length to leg length: Compare the distance between the top of your shoulders and your hips to the distance between your hips and your ankles. Our oft-referenced “average” figure will have slightly longer legs than torso. The average length from shoulder to hem in sweater patterns will be fine for this group of knitters. Those with a long torso and short legs (like me) will typically need to add length to the sweater (where depends on the shape and placement of their curves). Those with a short torso and substantially longer legs might need to shorten a sweater.

Now, pull out the second photo. You probably won’t need to draw any lines on this picture, but I’m going to draw two lines on mine to focus your attention:

Looking at your shape from the side gives you two important pieces of information. First, what (if anything) you need to do in the way of bust shaping. The curve I’ve drawn on the left will either be nonexistent (no bust shaping), a happy medium (like mine), or exaggerated. The depth of that curve will help determine your need for bust darts.

The first thing to notice about the second curve is that it’s probably deeper than you think. Even those of us who have a bit of extra padding in the belly almost always have a nice back curve, and this is a great thing to accentuate in your sweaters. The second thing to notice about your back curve is that it can be useful for determining shaping. We’ll discuss shaping in detail in Installment 8, but a preview is that if the waist shaping occurs at the sides of the sweater (rather than through vertical darts or princess seams) you’ll look at the difference between those two curves to estimate how many short-rows you’ll need at the bust.

Thanks to these two photos you’ve gained an enormous amount of data about your own shape. At this point, you should be comfortable in your knowledge of:

• Whether you’re top-heavy, proportional, or bottom-heavy.
• Whether you’re curvy or straight and how fast those curves happen.
• Whether you have a long or short torso.
• Whether you’re busty or not and to what extent that bust needs to be addressed in your knitting.
• Any special needs you’ll want to accommodate in your knitting.

Some examples of that last category would include especially long arms, an especially short neck, or uneven weight distribution (e.g., especially heavy upper arms). Armed with this self-knowledge, you should be feeling much more confident in your ability to choose a flattering sweater and alter it appropriately. Our next task is to gather the measurements you’ll need.

Taking Your Measurements.

In order to carry out the suggestions I’ll make in this series for altering your hand-knits, you’ll need to have a collection of your own measurements. A full set of these measurements will allow you to create a sweater custom-designed for you; we’ll go over this in Installment 9. The measurements are essential for modifying existing sweaters too! For now, I’ll just go over the measurements you might need, how to take them, and roughly what they’re used for. For your convenience, I’ve drawn up a quick PDF on which to write them down. You can find it here.

First, the ones you already know: Bust, waist, and hip. The only trick here is to measure the hip where you want your sweaters to end. (Quick reminder: That’s at your widest point if you’re top heavy, and probably just above it if you’re bottom-heavy. Proportional shapes will need to make minor adjustments to this on a per-sweater basis—just go with your measurement at your favorite sweater length, for now.)

In addition to the three basics, there are a few other measurements you’ll want to nab. We’ll start from the bottom up.

Hip-to-Waist Length.

This determines how long the sweater should be between the hem and the completion of any waist shaping.

To take it, measure from where you want your sweater to end (where you took your hip measurement) straight up to the narrowest point of your waist. It is a good idea to stand in front of a mirror for this measurement, to check your placement. It’s easiest to take this measurement on your front.

Waist to armhole shaping.

This, combined with the above measurement, will determine how long you want your sweater to be from armhole to hem. It’s a good idea to double-check the addition of these two numbers with one measurement from hem to armhole shaping.

To take it, measure from your narrowest point up to where your armhole shaping will be. I find it easiest to take this measurement on my center front (between the breasts)—your mileage may vary. It is a good idea to stand in front of a mirror for this measurement, to check your placement. This measurement in particular is one I like to take while wearing a ribbed tank for reference, since most tank tops have their underarm seams at the appropriate place for armhole shaping.

Required bust shaping, I and II.

At the end of taking these measurements you’ll know roughly how many inches of bust shaping you’ll need to include in your sweaters, if any. If you’re sure from the initial exercises that you won’t need bust shaping, skip this set of measurements. We’ll be taking four measurements here. In both cases, we’re trying to capture the difference between how you’re shaped in the front vs. how you’re shaped in the back.

For the first two measurements, we’re trying to get at the difference from hem to shoulder on your front and your back. You’ll use this measurement if you add bust shaping via horizontal short rows. You’ll need a partner for these measurements. First, measure close to your body, following the curve of your back, from the hem of your imaginary sweater to the top of your shoulder. Then do the same on your front, following the curve of your bust. Subtract the back measurement from the front measurement. The difference will probably be between ½’’ and 2’’ or 1.25cm and 5cm.

For the second two measurements, we’re trying to get at the difference in the cross measurement on your front vs. your back. You’ll use this to determine how many additional increases you’ll need on the front if you’re adding bust shaping via vertical darts. You’ll again need assistance for this. First, measure from side-to-side at your widest bust point across your back; then, the same measurement across your front. Keep in mind that the stretchiness of the knit fabric will accommodate up to an inch or so of difference. (I have one inch of difference in those measurements and typically do not add any increases to vertical darts.)

Cross-chest distance/torso circumference.

For most women, the standard measurements for knitting patterns will have a cross-chest difference that works fine. However, this is still a good measurement to know! If you have an especially large bust, choosing sweater sizes based on your torso circumference and making up the rest with bust shaping is the way to go.

The torso circumference is taken the same way that your bust measurement is taken, just higher up—right underneath the armpits.

The cross-chest distance plus an inch or two of ease is what a well-fitting sweater should measure from shoulder seam to shoulder seam. To take this, measure from the outside of one well-fitting bra strap to the outside of the other. Mine, as shown in the above picture, is 12’’/30.5cm.

The interesting fact about this measurement is that it is not highly variable. In November I took an informal poll of around three dozen women. Their bust measurements ranged from 29’’/74cm to 50’’/127cm, but their cross-chest measurements were by and large all between 11’’/28cm and 13’’/33. Furthermore, the outliers were not outliers in bust measurements–the smallest cross-chest measurement of 9’’/23cm belonged to someone with a fairly average 38’’/96cm bust; the largest of 14.5’’/37cm belonged to a smaller-busted lady.

Depth of cleavage.

With apologies to the more modest among you, there’s just nothing else to call this. In evaluating how deep a particular neckline will be on you, it is important to be able to look at a sweater pattern’s schematic and determine where a particular neckline will fall on your figure.

Measure straight down over one breast from shoulder to fullest point, and then from collarbone to fullest point. The first measurement will let you evaluate an existing pattern and the second will let you modify a higher neckline (even crew necks typically don’t reach above the collarbone).

Four sleeve lengths.

As we’ll discover in Installment 6, the length of your sleeves has a huge impact on whether a particular sweater flatters or doesn’t. You will want to keep four lengths handy: short sleeves, elbow, ¾-length, and full-length sleeves.

The trick to taking this measurement is not to measure all the way from your armpit. The armhole shaping on most sweaters happens at least an inch below the actual armpit (and sometimes as much as 3’’/7.5cm for a loose-fitting sweater). So instead of putting the end of the measuring tape all the way up there, look for the place on your arm where a well-fitting underarm seam will hit. Then measure to mid-bicep, elbow, mid-forearm, and just past the wrist from that spot.

Bicep and wrist circumference.

This is useful for determining how baggy or tight a particular sweater will be on your upper arms. Again, while for most women the standard measurements will be fine, having these measurements handy will provide an excellent tool for envisioning how a particular sweater will look on you.

Measure snugly but not tightly around the largest part of your bicep and your wrist.

Calculating some differences.

Finally, subtract your waist measurement from your torso circumference: This is roughly the amount of waist shaping you’ll want above the waist. Subtract your waist measurement from your circumference at your desired sweater’s hem: This is roughly the amount of waist shaping you’ll want below the waist.

Write all of these down in a table or file and stash it in a few places. You’ll come back to these measurements again and again and again. (As a reminder, I’ve made a little PDF table for you here.)

Anatomy of a Sweater.

The next few installments of this series will look at garment elements in detail. Before diving in, I’d like to take a few moments to deconstruct a sweater and highlight which sorts of modifications are easy to do.

Whether constructed from the bottom up, top down, all in one piece, or in many pieces, all sweaters need to fit the same human form. So all sweater constructions have a lot in common: They’re three tubes (arms and torso) with some “glue” at the top to make those tubes fit together without bunching or stretching. In a sweater constructed with set-in sleeves, that “glue” is in the form of seams: The sweater is drawn in from the width of the bust to the cross-chest width (plus some ease), and then the tops of the sleeves are knit in a curve with a length equal to the circumference of the armhole.

For raglan sweaters, the sleeve “caps” are significantly larger, and the cross-chest portion of the sweater is substantially narrower than in a pieced set-in sweater. Yoked sweaters treat the top of the body as another tube, but one that narrows as it goes toward the neck.

What we’re really concerned with, in knitting to flatter our shapes, is how to modify pieces of sweater patterns to best suit our own needs. I’ll break up the kinds of modifications we want to make in to three groups.

Group 1: Easy-peasy modifications.

These “no brainers” are things that require very little math and no changes to any other part of the pattern. You should always, always be confident in making these changes.

Basically, anything that affects nothing other than those three “tubes” is an easy change. Lengthen or shorten the sweater, lengthen or shorten the sleeves, add waist or bust shaping (or move existing shaping around) at your pleasure. I love this category of modifications because you get a lot of benefit in terms of flattery for very, very little effort.

To determine what modifications you’ll typically want to make, simply compare the measurements you’ve taken in this installment with the pattern’s schematic. One subtlety to keep in mind regarding altering the length of a sweater is that you should carefully analyze where you want the extra length to fall. This is why I had you take hip-to-waist and waist-to armhole measurements. You might want to add your length before, after, or during shaping. (Or perhaps, a little bit of length in all three places!)

Don’t be afraid! Go forth and make these mods.

Group 2: Moderately easy modifications.

These modifications are slightly more difficult than the previous category since there’s more math involved in calculating them, but you shouldn’t be put off by that! It’s still totally possible to do these mods without major recalculation if you like the sweater pattern enough to put in the work.

Modifications in this category center around the neckline and cover changes not affecting the shoulders of the sweater. Some examples: Changing the shape of the neckline (like making Arm Candy, above, into a scoop or square); changing the trim on the neckline (for example, changing the seed stitch above to garter or a cable); changing the depth of the neckline (to show less cleavage or to adjust to your particular cleavage depth).

The calculations for these changes would be a little more involved than simply adding an inch of length to the sweater, but they require no fiddling with any piece other than the front. Relevant measurements are likely to include your cross-chest measurement, your cleavage depth, and your general bustiness. Changing a crew neck to a V-neck or a scoop neck is a great modification for busty knitters and is not that difficult to carry out.

These changes require a little more confidence, but not a whole lot more effort, than the ones in the previous category.

Group 3: Advanced modifications.

Full disclosure: I am a confident and adventurous knitter prone to obsession, so I’m going to include this category of modifications even though most knitters will probably never make them. Advanced sweater modifications directly affect that “glue” at the top of the tubes. You’re basically only going to use these when you must have a particular sweater, at all costs. (I changed Marie Wallin’s Tulip to have set-in sleeves, for example.)

There are two main areas that you might fiddle with for an advanced mod.

Neckline changes that do affect the shoulders of the sweater, like narrowing or widening a neckline, have pretty simple computations but will need to be repeated on the back of the sweater too. For simplicity’s sake, consider a sweater with set-in sleeves constructed in pieces, like Arm Candy above. Narrowing the neckline by an inch on each side is a fairly easy modification to do—add 1 inch of stitches to the shoulders on each side by taking them away from the stitches to be decreased in the neckline—but the same changes need to be made on the back as well. Notice this does not affect the armscye at all since the depth of the armhole remains the same.

Finally, the armscye. Anything that affects this, including shortening or lengthening the armhole, widening the torso, or changing one type of sleeve to another (like my alteration of a cap sleeve to a set-in), will require the most work out of any modifications you’ll make. There are excellent references to help out the adventurous knitter with these modifications. I recommend Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top Down, Maggie Righetti’s Sweater Design in Plain English, Ann Budd’s The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes & Gauges, and of course Elizabeth Zimmerman is the ultimate authority on yoked decreases. (Book links redirect you to amazon.)

What’s Up Next.

After this installment, you are confident about your own body shape and the sorts of patterns you’ll want to bump to the top of your Ravelry queue. You’re armed with measurements, and in the next few installments I’ll give you the opportunity to use them! We’ll go over necklines, sleeves, sweater length, and shaping in some serious detail.

I feel passionately that you should have a closet full of hand-knits that you’re proud to wear wherever you go. Helping you understand what your own shape is and how you can choose knitting patterns that will make you look your best are the reasons I’m writing this tutorial series. I hope you’re enjoying them!

To purchase a PDF version of this installment (US$2.00), or the entire series (US$10.00): Buy this Buy all