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Piece on Earth-Geodesic Sweater…nearly

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SWAP item #6 ?

Geodesic Sweater by Blueprints for Sewing

geo3.jpg

Made in offcuts of ponte in blue, purples and teal.

It’s fairly boxy, [as is the Fractal Sweater, following shortly], a shape I generally avoid, already being  a boxy woman, but hey ho, I need some sweaters which will coordinate with several bottoms.

Plus, maths name!

Nerd time [or is it geek time?]- the geodesic is sort of geodesic, being constructed of triangles, although I could get snippy about it not being quite the thing…but nah, it tried its best!  It’s got a lot of seams of course, but is a cool way to use scraps.  AND POCKETSES!

I zoomed the geodesic together, no problems other than fighting against slippage on the overlocker.  I wasn’t aiming at perfect point matching of course, shoot me.  The bottom band was IMMENSELY long, I tool 6-7″ out and could have taken more.  I don’t think it’s too voluminous for a casual top, but it’s very long…those pockets are way down below a useful position, but other than disassembling it and making every single triangle smaller, I see no fix… If I make another [I do like the design] I would go down a size or two, using the smaller pattern pieces.

The neckband length seemed good, but the neckline itself is a little wider than I’d prefer.  So THAT needs a fix.

SO I wore it for an evening, took some pictures, and decided it needed to change.  I also let my maths brain work out why it’s SO much longer than in the pattern pictures.  Duh.  Pretty obvious- a non-maths person scaling up a garment like this would be thinking primarily about getting bust sizes right.  There are nice instructions for altering some of the triangle of you need an FBA or a wider shape at the hips…but as ALL the pattern pieces are identical equilateral triangles, larger for every size increase, this also increases the length of the finished garment by the same scale factor.

SO.  Assuming for the sake of argument that the original pattern was a size 36″ bust, on a more or less average height woman, say about 5’5″.  Now If I made that up it’s be about 2″ too long as I’m only 5’3″, but I can live with that.

However, scaling up from that 36″ bust to my 44″, multiplies ALL lengths by 1 2/9.  So the 5’5″ person wanting to wear it would now need to be about 6’7″.  Oops.

Which explains this effect.

I do love the colours though!

So. time to dismantle, at least partly.  Of course, everything I want to remove has been done on the overlocker AND topstitched to finish.  Dammit.

The entire bottom row needs to come off, I needto tweak that neckline, at the moment it’s not even bra-friendly which is mad for a baggy sweater.  And then get it all back together again.  AARGH!  Off I gp.

 

20 thoughts on “Piece on Earth-Geodesic Sweater…nearly”

  2. It looks fab though! This has been on my list for aaaaaages.

    Really love the colour scheme you’ve gone for, and I actually don’t mind the longer length! But yeah, that neckline is way too big for my liking as well so I’d be changing that too!

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    1. It will be fixed [and better sooner than later or it might sink into the Crate of Shame for good. The fractal sweater is an easier proposition, and will be done in another hour or two yay!

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  4. You might want to check the heights different pattern companies are designing for:
    Butterick, Vogue, McCall’s and Simplicity are designed for 5’5″ to 5’6″ –
    Butterick and Vogue size their petite range for 5’2″ to 5’3″, but Simplicity sizes for 5’4″ and under.
    Burda designs for 5’6 1/4″, the petite range is for 5’3″ and tall is for 5’9 1/4″
    A surprising number of ranges are designed for 5’7″ or 5’9″
    (see here – https://csews.com/sewing-2/sewing-pattern-height – for more)
    Said through gritted teeth as someone at 5’2″ who has to adjust shoulders as well as body and crutch rise lengths, but not necessarily leg length.

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  5. I like your color choices, and I like the idea. The actual product is… yeah. There are a ton of these patterns and they all have this same problem. Now if you sneak a horizontal band in there, maybe. Probably not.

    I have a proportion wheel (a vestigial tool of the old newsprint era) to do my enlarging / delarging math work, but at the end…you move one thing and damn you move all of them. Same goes for those knit patchwork sweaters by Horst Schulz. Easy to knit my patootie.

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    1. Lol I think you have to have a mathematical mindset to realise what the problem is- the scaling on this is MAD. I will have to test it to see if it would work if the triangles are isosceles not equilateral…but then of course it won’t be geodesic and that would nag at me too!

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  9. Thanks for the tip about size hadn’t really given the equilateral triangle aspect of the design any thought – apart from how cool. Can see the top in its current dimensions being great to wear with leggings if the neck was better proportioned. Removing the bottom triangles looks as though it would fix your length problem and the design would only be slightly compromised – small price to make such a unique colourful top wearable.

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    1. It’s done…and now slightly too short for my taste so I need to go at it AGAIN to put on a wider band. Sheesh. All to use up some scraps! I fixed the neckline too, but definitely hope my report saves someone a disappointment. I will be doing a review on PR too…

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