Bella is finished!

Yippee, I finally finished Bella Paquita yesterday! With all of the reknitting I did, I probably knit the whole thing twice.

I used Rowan Calmer, so my gauge was very different from the pattern and I had to customize everything. I also knitted the top so that the lace would start higher.

More details on the modifications are on my Ravelry project and blog post.

Getting Close

Sorry for the dark late-at-night photo, but I've got to take what I can get. I'm finally getting close to the finish on Bella Paquita. Since I wasn't sure I'd have enough yarn, I stopped knitting the body when it was the shortest length I'd want, and put the stitches on waste yarn. I'll go back and knit more length if I have enough yarn.

My dilemma is now the sleeve length. I can't decide whether I want to knit them to the elbows, as in the original pattern. Any thoughts? Should I just end the sleeve now, add enough length so the bottom of the sleeve reaches the top of the ribbing on the body, or go to the elbow? If I go all the way to the elbow, I think there will be just barely enough yarn, so I probably won't be able to add any length to the body, and then I'm not sure it will look well-proportioned.

Chart Problems, and Trying Again

I'm just about to start knitting the top of Bella Paquita for the 3rd time. This one had better fit, or I'll be ripping the yarn into confetti!

There seems to be a problem with the medium charts. Marnie is aware that there's an issue, but has not had a chance to look into it yet. I thought I should post about it in case anyone else tries to knit the medium size in the meantime.

I would normally have knit the "small" size, but my yarn gauge is off since I'm using Rowan Calmer, which is a thinner yarn. Doing some number crunching told me that knitting the pattern in the large size should work. Unfortunately, either I messed up the math, my gauge changed, or it's just because the Calmer is so stretchy, the top ended up being a little looser than I wanted it to fit.

Looking at the difference between the medium and large bust sizes, I figured the medium would probably be fine. So off I went and knitted the top for the second time. This time it was way too small. I couldn't figure out how I could have such a huge difference, when there was only 1.75" difference between the pattern bust size for the medium and large.

Looking at all of the charts, I discovered that the chart for the medium top is smaller than the chart for the small top.

At first, I just figured that somehow the charts got switched, and that the "small" chart was really for the "medium" size, and vice-versa. But after crunching some numbers, I'm not so sure that's really the problem.

I don't know how Marnie calculated the circumference for the size dimensions, but I tried this:

Number of stitches across back at underarms x 2 (for front and back), divided by 4.5 stitches per inch = bust circumference.

Small chart: (78 st x 2) / 4.5 = 34.7"
Medium chart: (76 st x 2) / 4.5 = 33.8"
Large chart: (88 st x 2) / 4.5 = 39.1"

The pattern sizes for the bust show:

Small: 34.25
Medium: 37.5
Large: 39.25

The small and large come out very close to my calculations, but the medium is completely off. If the small and medium charts were just switched, I'd expect to see the "small" size come out closer to 37". So maybe the small is really the small, and the medium is just wrong. Or, maybe there's some other secret to calculating the bust size.

So anyway, I've spent the day working out my own chart, that's a little bigger than the 'small', and hopefully I'll come out OK.

As for the bottom and sleeve charts, it looks like the small top matches the small bottom, and the medium top matches the medium bottom (I compared the number of stitches at the join), but for the sleeves, the small sleeves are really smaller than the medium sleeves. I won't worry about the sleeves until I get there.

On the plus side, I really like how the Calmer is knitting up, so if I can get the size to work out, I'm sure it will be great.

Paired increases for Bella

I will be starting Bella in a week or so. What types of paired increases are people using at the sides? I will be knitting it in one piece. Are you doing a M1 before the marker and one after? How are you increasing? Thanks!

Bella sizing question

I am finishing up Giselle and now I am preparing the pattern for Bella. I notice that the smallest size is bust 34.25 inches which happens to be my exact bust measurement. Is this the actual sweater measurement or is it meant to fit that size bust? I have found that this type of sweater fits me best with at least 2 inches of negative ease. What would be the best way to accomplish that? Knit it to a slightly smaller gauge? I have found Giselle to be a little big after knitting the smallest size and getting gauge, so it wasn't enough negative ease. Thanks for any suggestions for getting the right fit!

Here is my Bella!

I used Pattons Classic Wool in Leaf Green.

Marnie, thank you for the beautiful pattern. I had a lot of fun knittting this sweater. I left the lace open, I am in love with the finshed sweater! I am now halfway through my first KAL!

Now, on to Giselle ...

Bella Complete!

My Bella is complete. Here it is in it's unblocked form:


I used size 7 circ. needles and Valley Yarns Colrain in Olive Grey.

Loved the lace pattern. The leaves are perfect in this yarn color. It's very comfy.

If I were to do this again I would make the bottom part one size up and downsize the top by working it in size 6 needles. It focus' a little more attention on my tummy than I would like. I would also pick up stitches at the armholes and knit the sleeves down from there. I would also do a couple less repeats on the lace part. I had to cut way too much for the steeks. The steeks were moved to the back of the neck. I couldn't get them to lay right on my bony shoulders.

Other than those things, I like it!

Partial Paquita Top

Well, I've gotten the first part of the top of the Bella Paquita done. I'm working on the sleeves right now and the lace will follow. I'm having a lousy times following directions. For some reason, directions and I don't play well together. I won't tell you where I goofed, that'll be my little secret, but reading are hard. That's all I'm sayin'. :)

I'm using Valley Yarn's Colrain in Olive Grey for this. I love this yarn. It's so incredibly soft and just glides on the needles. This yarn tried to appear in the Minimalist Cardigan, but it just wasn't working for me, way too much moss stitch. So, here we go again. This time, I think it's working!