The Charles Collection: F2F Style (New Towne)

Welcome to the final day of the Charles Collection, F2F-Style!

As a reminder, a few weeks ago the stars aligned and I had the lovely Erin, Jackie, Stitchy, and Kellee all in one place with Caro and her camera nearby. We did a Fit to Flatter-style photoshoot of sweaters from The Charles Collection on these gorgeous women, all with different body shapes. This week, I’m sharing the results of a different sweater each day.

I’m finishing up with the New Towne cardigan. This was wonderful to knit, because the yarn is so fantastic–soft, but not completely flaccid like most 100% alpaca that I’ve worked with. There’s a nice bit of spring in the yarn, and it produces a glorious fabric. (I jumped at the chance to use it again in a book sweater, actually.)

I got a great question yesterday about Jackie and Erin’s lack of appearance in the Lexington and Beacon Hill posts–it’s not because those styles don’t flatter Erin and Jackie’s figures! The samples were just the wrong size for them.

New Towne is a really versatile cardigan meant to be worn open or closed in the middle with a shawl pin/other kind of closure. In my classes, many busty women worry about being able to wear open cardigans–they say that the cardigan fronts scoot themselves over to the outside of their bust, making for a very annoying game of tug-o-war. The key is having sufficient ease in the front of the sweater–cardigans can’t tolerate the amount of negative ease a pullover will. Check Erin out in New Towne:

As you can see, when the fronts are large enough the cardigan fronts hang nicely over the bust (and actually minimize it). Unfortunately, as you can also see, this cardigan is quite a bit too large for Erin. (She’s wearing it with 4” of positive ease.) We did a little tucking of the extra fabric in back, and you can see the armholes are far too large. The solution, should Erin want to knit the cardigan, is to knit a smaller size but widen just the front pieces. Erin could make a size down, but cast on an extra 1-2” of stitches on each front piece, performing extra neckline decreases to get back to her proper number of shoulder stitches. This would give her the same flattering lines on the front, without having to put up with sleeves and back that were too large.

Kellee demonstrates the final result, wearing the cardigan with 0-1” of negative ease in the bust:

I think this looks just smashing on Kellee. I wouldn’t change a thing. Nor would I change anything about how Stitchy chose to wear the cardigan:

She’s wearing the cardigan with 0-1” of positive ease in the bust, and I love the way the closure draws an hourglass on her figure. I’d definitely recommend this look for the cardigan as a more curvaceous alternative to the worn-open style.

So there you have it! Four Charles Collection sweaters, four lovely models, and a whole bunch of great looks. You can get The Charles Collection here, and I hope you’ll share with us what your FOs look like!

5 thoughts on “The Charles Collection: F2F Style (New Towne)

  1. What a great series! Amazing how it looks different on each person, and flattering each in their own way. Lovely!

  2. This series leads me to believe I need to learn more regarding negative ease and positive ease.
    Back to the books.
    hugs
    Gerry

  3. Thanks for doing this- it’s always easier for me to visualize how a sweater will look on me when I see it on more than one model. Thanks to your gorgeous models too!
    It’s a stunning collection.

  4. This is one of the activities I do in classes I teach on fit. Normally I don’t have the advantage of a great stash of sweaters to put on different people, so I will have people bring items from their home, and I’ll also steal a whole bunch of the shop samples and do a similar thing. I think it’s sometimes hard to visualize how something will look on a model when it is a flexible shape, like clothing.

  5. […] Cardigan is a cozy, beautifully flattering cardigan in luscious yarn. Remember how great it looked on my friends? Now, it can be yours for […]

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