| Sweater Wizard | The Saddle Shoulder: How to manipulate Sweater Wizard |
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I have had so many requests for the saddle shoulder, that I thought that I would try to demonstrate how to use Sweater Wizard and Word to do a saddle shoulder
shape.
In the example below, I used a T-Shape. The same thing can be accomplished with a Set-In or Drop Shoulder once you get the hang of it. The first thing is to understand the saddle shoulder. The body of the sweater stops at the front and the back at x number of inches. At the center of the top of the sleeve, x number of inches in length to match the shoulder width of the body and x number of inches in width to complete the body length. In plain English, there is no shoulder seam, but a piece of material added to the top of the sleeve that covers the shoulder and is the same width on the back and the front. Hopefully the two diagrams below will help. The gauge in this example is 4sts/in, 5rws/in, size 32...all the defaults. First look at the body. I narrowed the width of the top by 1". This is a matter of taste. On both front and back you would stop knitting 1" from the top. This would give you a 2" saddle shoulder, 1" in the front and 1" in the back. The saddle panel is going to be knit on the sleeves and fit into the body of the sweater including the neck. Therefore, I made a back neck of one inch. Notice that the shoulder width is 4.5", therefore the saddle panel needs to be 4.5" long. In this example the width in the front and the back is 1", therefore the saddle panel on the sleeves needs to be 2" wide.
Because we are going to have an extra inch in the front, decrease the front neck width from 3" to 2".
At this point you can subtract an inch from the body length if you wish, because the saddle is going to add an inch. I did not do it...again it is a matter of taste. Don't forget to press enter to recalculate. Save the pattern.
I am afraid that my diagram is a little off center, but the saddle panel is in the center of the sleeve. Notice the shaping at the top, this shaping is probably only one or two decreases to complete the neck shaping. This panel is going to fit in at the neck, front and back. Before the text directions can be customized, a few numbers need to be calculated. Length of the saddle panels in rws : rwsperin * height = saddle rows 5 * 4.5 = 22.5 (since we like even numbers, round off to 22)
Width of saddle panel in sts: stsperin * width = saddle sts 4 * 2 = 8 sts.
The saddle panel is going to be 8 sts wide and 22 rows high. Now the last important number to calculate here before we go to the directions is where to place the panel. The top of the sleeve has 72 sts. We need to center the 8 sts for the saddle panel once the sleeve length is complete. The formula is: (Number of sleeve sts - number of saddle panel sts) div 2 (72 -8) = 64 64 div 2 = 32.
Armed with the following information, 8 sts wide, 22 rws high, 32 sts to beginning of the panel, we are now ready to customize the pattern in Word.
At this point, the sweater has been charted as an unmodified t-shape in size and gauge desired. It has been saved as a Sweater Wizard File. The next step is to export the pattern to Word. Once the pattern is in Word, close Sweater Wizard. Save the pattern in Word as a safe guard.
Look at the text directions in Word. Start at the Back. Find the paragraph that reads: Underarm Shaping Bind off 6 sts at beg of next 2 rws. Continue in pat st until piece meas 22.5" from the start [row 100]. On next row, bind off center 24 sts, attach another ball of yarn and work across row. On next row, dec 1 st at each neck edge. Continue in pat st until piece meas 23.5"[row 106]. Bind off 18 sts across each shoulder.
Erase the words in Italics and change to read. On the next row, bind off 18 sts, work to the end of the row. On the next row, bind off 18 sts and work 26 back neck until row 106. Bind off back neck sts.
Work the front just as stated.
Body is ready to accept the saddle panel
Now to the sleeve page. Go to the end of the sleeve directions where it reads Continue in pat st until piece meas 17.95"[row 77]. Bind off 72 sts.
Erase the line that reads Bind off 72 sts (the one I have in italics). We are now ready to use the numbers we wrote down above. Change to read: Bind off 32 sts, work the next 8 sts in pattern, complete row. On the next row, (coming back to the center 8) bind of 32 sts. You know have 8 sts on the needle. Work 8 sts until piece measure 4.5" from sleeve top. Bind off.
Work second sleeve same as first.
Now go back to the Finishing section on the first page. Delete the Seam shoulders line Replace with, line up your saddle panels on the body of the sweater, Invisibly seam into place. If you do not know how to invisibly seam from the right sides please refer to Big Book of Knitting or Vogue Knitting to look at the graphics for seaming from the top. Once the saddle panels are in place, you can then seam the sleeves and the body. the last step would be to pick up the stitches from the neck for the neck finishing.
The standard neck finishing paragraph reads: Standard Neck Finishing With smaller size 16" circular needle or dpn set , pick up 70 sts around neck edge. Inc or dec as necessary on the first row to balance pattern. Work in desired ribbing for 1" or desired length. Bind off loosely.
Change the 70 sts to 86 sts as we added 8 sts on each side of the saddle.
I hope this gets you started.
Carole
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