Celebrate your body by knitting to fit with Libby from Truly Myrtle

Find a dressmaker's tape measure!

If yours is old, replace it! They stretch over time. Inches or centimetres? Choose whichever you prefer. Don’t be too panicky about being absolutely accurate. Being out by half an inch, or a centimetre is ok. Remember, knitting stretches!

Take some measurements!

Some body measurements are tricky to take yourself so if you can, team up with a friend to take each other’s measurements. It’s fun doing things with a cheerleader by your side. Try to remember that your measurements are just numbers. They say nothing about who you are, how valuable you are, or whether you're good enough. Take your measurements every six months or so - especially if life has been stressful!

Think how much 'ease' you like to wear

Ease is a funny concept to get our heads around. It's the difference in measurement between our bodies and our clothes. It took me a while to figure it all out. Mostly, I couldn’t quite visualise what different amounts of ease looked like on my body, and wasn’t sure how much ease I felt comfortable wearing. Basically, positive ease = your garment is looser than your body, zero ease = it's the same size as your body and negative ease = it's smaller than your body. Try measuring some of the clothes in your wardrobe to get a feel of how much ease you feel good in.

Check the schematic in the pattern

When you open a pattern, go straight to the schematic. Ignore references in a pattern to “small”, “medium”, and “large”, and also ignore any suggestions to knit a particular size if you have a certain bust size. It’s tempting to think that you’ll choose a size that’s right for you if you go by the designer's suggestions. But, if you are like virtually every other knitter, and have a body that doesn’t fit exactly into any mythical “standard sizes”, then there’s no way of knowing if the designer's suggested size will actually feel great when it’s on your body.

Rather than referring to your body, the numbers on a schematic tell us the finished size of the garment at various points. Remember, these numbers assume that your blocked gauge is exactly the same as the specified gauge in the pattern and that you’ve worked the number of stitches and rows as directed.

All those things being equal, if you follow a particular size in the pattern, once it is finished and blocked, the measurements of your sweater will be the same as those in the schematic and the finished measurements.

Knit a swatch!

When we're excited about a pattern and gorgeous yarn and itching to get started, knitting a swatch can feel like a chore that wastes precious yarn and knitting time. But really and truly, it's not. When a designer creates their knitting pattern the first thing they do is knit a swatch. Just like you, they knit up a square of yarn (often several squares of yarn) to work out exactly the type of fabric they want to create, to calculate how many stitches to cast on and use in the pattern and to experiment with stitches and ideas. And, every designer knits differently and most likely, differently to you.

Don't forget, the fabric you've knitted in your swatch will be the same as your sweater. How does it look? Are you happy with it? Does it suit the stitch pattern? Is it too tight? Too loose? If you're not happy, consider whether it's the needles that might be the problem or the combination of yarn and pattern.