How I modified a woman's cardigan to fit my dad

I love these buttons!

Over the summer I made my dad a cardigan. He wanted something more interesting than the typical men's sweater and he picked out Burrard by Glenna C. On Ravelry. It's a women's cardigan but I figured I could modify it to fit my dad. It worked out pretty well so I though I'd share how it did it. And of course the things I forgot and would do next time so that other people can avoid my mistakes.

Measurements and sizes

First I took my dad's measurements. Pretty much all of them: shoulder to hip, under arm to hip, under arm to shoulder, circumference of upper arm, length of arm, and of course chest circumference. 

I picked a size to cast on based on my dad's chest circumference and started knitting.

Modifications

For the back and front pieces I followed the normal pattern but added extra length to match my dad's measurements, which lined up with the largest size of the pattern. I also skipped the waist shaping.

For the arms I did the same thing but my row gauge was off the patterns so I got to the required length before I finished all my increases so I stopped increasing before the pattern called for it. But it was wide enough since my dad's arms aren't that big. 

The pieces blocking before I began assembly

I blocked all of the pieces separately before I sewed them together. I don't usually bother to block first but since this is all stockinet and the edges were curling I decided to test out my new blocking wires. They worked really well. Especially on the edges where I had slipped the first stitch of every row. That slipped stitch gave a nice loop I could just slide the wire right into. I did wish my set came with more of the T pins, but I can probably find extras cheap on amazon.

What I forgot to do

I forgot to switch the button holes to the other side of the button band, which would have been easy to do. 

I also didn't think about the fact that it's a V-neck and my dad is flat chested while this cardigan is designed for a women. So the V come out a bit deeper than it would on a woman because there are no boobs pulling the fabric forward. It would be an easy fix to just add one more button higher on the neck and it'd be a nice v neck. To fix it after the fact now I'm going to sew another button on and then attach a crochet loop on the inside of the button band where the extra button Joel should have gone. Hopefully that will secure the extra top button.

Me modeling the sweater

This was my first time doing major sweater modification and I think it turned out well. I heard from the knit girllls podcast that Amy Herzog has a new craftsy class out about modifying sweaters and I'm thinking about taking that class. I've been really into sweater knitting lately and I always want to change something so it fits a little bit better. I learned a lot from Amy's book knit to flatter, which I would highly recommend for anyone looking to knit sweaters. I don't know much about knitting/sizing/construction theory, mostly I just hope for the best and do what seems like it might work and her book really helped me learn some of the basics. Ok, I'll get off my Amy Herzog soap box and let you return to your regularly scheduled program. And as my friend Maria would say, happy knitting.