Yesterday morning I was up for a little knitting challenge so I decided there was no time like the present to cast on for little Sheldino (the love child of Sheldon and Sheldina). Sheldino is going to be a real challenge because I have to resize the whole pattern. And this isn’t easy resizing like changing the bust on a sweater — this is the most complicated pattern revision I have attempted to date.
I am knitting him on size 2 needles vs. size 4 on the parents. That should shrink him by at least 10 percent to start with. As for changing the pattern proportions, I decided to start with the shell so I don’t have to swatch out the honeycomb pattern a million times to get it to fit the body. This way, I’ll start with the shell and use that as a baseline for the FO size, then I only have to swatch out stockinette, get all my math in order, and recalculate all the body increases and decreases. So that’s the plan of action.
The original pattern makes the cells on the shell honeycomb pattern 6 stitches wide so I am making this one only four inches wide. However, I am still making the cells five rows tall like the original, so far that looks good, but if it doesn’t work out I won’t feel bad because I am mentally prepared for the inevitability of a lot of frogging on this project because it is so experimental.
Here is my progress so far:
I’m knitting it flat on circs. You know how much I hate doing that!! It turns out size 2 is the only size I don’t have in straights. How sick is that? Especially since the exact same thing happened to me with the sassy stripes socks I’m working on — I have all sizes of DPNs except size 5. So I had to knit those on circs too. Lame. (And now all my cables from the Boye set are in use, preventing me from
Anyway, I had an epiphany about why I hate knitting flat with circs. I was listening to an old Knit Picks podcast on the treadmill Friday morning and Kelley was discussing Continental vs. English knitting. I knit English style because that’s just how I learned to knit. Kelley prefers teaching new knitters Continental because when you knit English style you actually have to let go of the right needle to use that hand to throw, and she thinks that freaks out new knitters — she says it is better to let them keep both hands on the needles at all times. Kelly knits Continental and she also knits basically everything on circs. So, as I was knitting flat on the circs for Sheldino I realized that when I dropped the right needle it doesn’t just just hang out there like a straight needle does. The cable on the circ sort of pulls on the right needle creating a tension that isn’t there with straights. So there you have it — now I know there is actually a rational reason why I don’t like knitting flat with circs. I’m not just picky. I suppose this is one more reason why I should try to learn Continental. Or, I could just buy size 2 straight needles…
And now I have to do homework 🙁
Hi Pepper! Good luck with your Sheldino:) I would definitely be interested in your mods:) Also, I too am not super fond of circs for flat knitting, because I find that unless the knitting really heavy, the circs flop around a lot when you throw. But for heavy things like sweaters, they reduce a lot of arm/wrist tension.
I am religiously keeping track of the mods I’m making and I fully intend to share! I don’t think other knitters might appreciate my hard work more than my 2 year old nephew… lol.