The Shu Shu Jumper: Sizing and Ease
The best part about knitting is being able to choose every detail of your project from the color to the pattern and more. But most knitters overlook that you can change a lot about how a sweater looks and fits just based on the size that you pick! Today in celebration of the Shu Shu Jumper release by Lily from Wishbone Yarns in collaboration with Sisters United, we are going to talk all things ease, why it matters, and how to choose the right size for you.
Sometimes it’s hard to visualize how a certain amount of ease will look on you, without just finishing the sweater and trying it on. If only we had an unlimited amount of time to knit, try on, tink, and re-knit. Since we don’t, it’s important to understand how different amounts of ease look on different bodies and how to choose the best ease for us.
Understanding what ease means can be the first step to understanding how to apply it to our projects. Starting with our pattern, you will see written “finished bust measurement/circumference” and alongside it will be a recommended amount of “ease” for the pattern. Basically ease means the amount of additional room you have in a garment beyond your measurement. To figure out what size you need to make, you’ll take your actual bust measurement at the widest point and add the recommended amount of ease - this determines the recommended finished size for you. For example, if you have a 34-inch bust and there’s a recommended ease of 6 inches, the size that is closest to 40 inches finished circumference is the size you are recommended to make. While this is useful to know, digging into understanding ease and how it affects fit will help you make an informed decision on what size you actually want to make to achieve the perfect fit for you.
Understanding ease
Most patterns will have a positive ease, anywhere from 1 inch to 20 inches of positive ease. But you may see a negative ease included in the pattern - this would mainly be for skin-tight/very fitted garments.
Before we can get into discussing the perfect fit for you, let’s talk about how the standard amount of ease typically corresponds with fit. You will see patterns that have 0 to 3 inches of positive ease - this is for closely fitting garments. They often have a lot of shaping to fit the body and require a lot more attention to make sure that your gauge is accurate. You will see patterns that are anywhere between 3 to 6 inches or maybe even up to 8 inches of ease - these are the standard fit garments. They fit straight to your body but are not oversized. From here, you will see patterns starting at 8 to 12 and even 15 inches of positive ease - now you’re beginning to see significantly oversized sweaters. These are those boxy drop shoulder sweaters, those big comfortable pullovers, and the fit will have a significant amount of drape and flow. And from there, the number will only increase further; anything above this is likely going to be a swancho or extremely oversized garment.
While these are the general rules of thumb for sizing, sometimes you want to choose the fit that works best for you, regardless of what the designer necessarily recommends. To try and figure out the amount of ease that you would like most for your project, it is best to find a sweater in your closet that most closely resembles the construction of the pattern you’ll be making. You don’t want to compare a raglan cardigan to a drop shoulder pullover, as the fit - and needed ease - will look completely different.
For the case of the Shu Shu Jumper, you would want to find a circle/round yoke and loose, flowery sweater to compare. After taking your bust measurements (reminder to measure at the widest point, not the underbust), you can then take the sweater that you have chosen to replicate, lay it flat, and measure the bust - don’t forget to double the flat measurement for circumference. You can then take the measurement off your sweater and subtract your bust measurement. This number is the amount of ease on your test sweater. You might be surprised by how much ease there is (or isn’t) in your favorite sweater, and this is useful information when picking out the size that you want to knit.
Hint - if you need to make a gift sweater for someone taking the measurements off of their favorite sweater will often be more accurate for fit (and more secretive) than measuring their actual body!
Dissecting Our Shu Shu
Now we can finally look at the Shu Shu sweater and see it on two very different body types. For our store sample, we made the size 3 and compared it on both 52-inch and 36-inch bust.
If we start on the left, looking at Alex, you can see that she has a 52 inch bust and is about 5 feet 1 inch tall. In the size 3, Alex has a -2 to -4 inches of ease at the bust which is drastically below the recommended amount in the pattern but this is much closer to Alexandra's preferred fit. Because of the lack of ease, it sits higher up on her shoulders, and therefore, the body looks significantly more cropped. This means that even though Alex is almost 4 inches shorter than Candace, the sweater sits much higher on her body, giving a cropped t-shirt look. It is also important to consider that while this size gives her negative ease at the bust, Alex has a 9-inch difference between the widest point of her bust and her waist, so the jumper still sits very loose around her body. What we can learn from this is that someone with a larger cup size might want to consider fewer inches of ease, because we risk ending up with an excessive amount of ease at our waist, in comparison to our bust.
We can compare this same exact sweater to the fit on Candace on the right. She has a 39-inch bust and is wearing this pattern with almost 11 inches of positive ease - closer to the recommended fit by the designer. We can see that this project looks much more flowy and loose on her. It should also be noted that even though Candace is 5 feet 4 inches, this project looks significantly longer on her because it is much looser around her shoulders. The look and fit of this sweater on Candace is much more fluffy, loose, and straight fit. You can also see that the sleeves sit significantly farther down on her arm, closer to her elbow. The colorwork yolk also sits much straight across her bust rather than the more round yolk on Alex.
We both had such a fun time getting to wear this jumper and dissecting the differences in fit. I think this is a great example of showcasing how making garments for ourselves is all about choosing what we want out of our finished project. We’d like to encourage you to really consider your desired fit and make decisions to best suit you and how you want to wear your knits. Both Alex and Candace loved how the Shu Shu fit on them, even though they have drastically different bodies.. Through this project, we learned how much choice in ease can impact fit. Even better, at FDF we were also inspired to consider that sometimes body positivity can be found by empowering us to choose our own fit, rather than trying to conform our bodies to an ideal for a garment.
For more Shu Shu fit inspiration, make sure to check out all of our amazing test knitters on Ravelry!