KO getting super-wide after washing/drying!

cecebiesanz · 06-26-2007, 09:22 AM

Help! A friend of mine made a sexy little top for herself using KnitPicks Shine Worsted. It was so cute before washing. Then she blocked it to seam up the sides. And it became sooooooooo wide.

So I offered to do some finishing work on it (since she was so frustrated she could no longer look at it), and then I thought if it went in the washer and drier, it might boing back to shape.

No such luck.

Any other tricks? Are we just screwed? It it the yarns fault? Is it repairable? Help!

Braden · 06-26-2007, 03:01 PM

Um, well, this is where I usually tell people to wash and dry their gauge swatches in the way they will the sweater, because this is what usually tends to happen.

That way, you'll have less stitches to expand after washing, and it will bloom to it's correct size.

But, I'm not talking to her, so could you ask her if she did that? I have a feeling that's definately the problem. You can run a sewing machine stitch up the side and then cut off the excess.

But it isn't the yarn's fault.

cecebiesanz · 06-26-2007, 05:47 PM

Ugh, that's what I was afraid of. I'm sure she did not wash and dry her gauge swatch.

So what she should've done, was to do a gauge swatch, wash and dry it, and then adjust her number of CO stitches--so she would've been making a really skinny sweater until it was washed and dried--is that right?

I'm thinking we'll just have to some how take it in on the sides... any advice on how to do that? I'm afraid to just chop off the excess, in case it unravels like a maniac...