Tag Archives: Amelia

This took me way longer to piece together than it should have, but I’ve been plagued with one thing or another since my last post on this project. Those things included some serious (and unexplained) wrist pain, which obviously made knitting and finishing a bit difficult.

But! I finally healed up enough to finish Amelia. Which makes me super happy!

Pattern: Amelia by Laura Chau
Yarn: O-Wool Balance in color 8014
Needles: US6 / 4.25mm Clover bamboo circulars

I made a lot of modifications to this one. The most obvious one is that I chose to add buttons all the way down. Sadly, I don’t love the buttons themselves, but they’ll work, and they’re easy to replace if I find ones I like better.

Other modifications: I mentioned this before, but I added shaping to this sweater. I’m still having a bit of a hard time with front shaping though, specifically bust increases. It’s more of a mental thing; for some reason I feel like my measurements are wrong there, and that the distance between my waist and full bust is longer than it actually is. I really just need to stop doubting the numbers and start increasing more rapidly. I did a better job at it this time, but there’s still room for shaping improvement.

I also went for set in sleeves instead of raglan shaping.

Oh! Speaking of sleeves, these are almost perfect! I could probably stand to add a little more ease in the lower arms on my next long-sleeved sweater, but these are pretty comfortable as is. Also, they’re just about as long as I wanted.

I do have a couple of quibbles with this sweater, both of which are sizing related and which can be easily remedied in future sweaters. This one’s a little too big in the back, and a hair too small in the front; just a teensy bit more ease in front would have prevented the gapping in the buttonband. Whoops. I’m pretty thrilled with the sweater despite these things, though!

I’m also pretty thrilled with the yarn I used, and definitely want to get more of it, once I let myself buy sweater yarn again. O-Wool Balance is 50% cotton, 50% merino wool; it’s not the first cotton/wool blend I’ve used but it’s my favorite to date! It’s warm, but not too hot for me to wear most of the year; it has a nice weight to it, but doesn’t feel as heavy as, say, Arm Candy does. The twisted rib pattern shows up beautifully, and the yarn softens up nicely after a wash, but not enough to make me fear immediate pilling.

So, overall, even with the minor sizing issues, I would still call this a win!

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on Amelia since you last saw it!

I finished the fronts. Looking at them now, I kind of wish I’d made the twisted rib section a little narrower. But I’m not bothered enough to reknit, or even to ladder down and change, so… it’s all good.

I’ve also finished the sleeves, which I’m a little paranoid about, not gonna lie. The last couple of times I knit long sleeves, I didn’t do so well – Roam’s sleeves are too long, and let’s not get started with all of Eris’s sleeve issues. So I made T measure me several times just to make sure. I think these are good now, but we’ll see once I seam everything.

After seaming, all I have left is to knit the neckline edging. Oh, and to sew on the buttons. Can’t wait to have a new sweater!

Back in high school (or was it early college?), I owned a cardigan with a two-way zipper, and spent some time experimenting to see which closure method suited me best. Keeping the top zipped and the bottom open was… well, not that method. In fact, it was horribly, horribly unflattering.

This still holds true today. I’m slightly bigger all around than I was as a teen, but my general shape hasn’t changed. So, what do I do when I see cute top-closure sweaters? Avoid them altogether?

Hah! Why would I do that when I could add buttons all the way down, or change the pattern to a bottom-closing one instead?

This is Amelia, by Laura Chau. Sort of. I say sort of because I’m actually just using the stitch patterns and making a sweater with actual waist shaping. I’m also knitting it in pieces, because if Peregrine taught me anything, it’s that I don’t actually like working sweaters in the round.

I’m also changing the raglan shaping and doing set-in sleeves instead, because I don’t think raglan shaping works for my body if I use my preferred amount of ease in the bust. I mean, Roam fits okay, but that sweater ended up with way more ease than I intended. And all of my most comfortable store-bought items with raglan shaping are also oversized in the bust. Set-in shaping, on the other hand, has been working pretty well for me so far.

Let’s see how this goes!