Should I always use the same amount of ease?
Making Sense of Ease - Part 3
The short answer here - probably not. In the last article, we talked about the concepts of fit (how close or far away a garment sits next to your body) and silhouette (the overall shape of the garment itself). If you want one sweater to be oversized and cozy and a different sweater to have a slimmer, tailored fit, the finished measurements of those two garments are going to be very different. Because ease is the difference between your sweater’s measurement on the flat and your body’s own measurements (which are the same regardless of which of those two sweaters you are wearing), the amount of ease has to be different between the two. But what happens when you’d like a similar fit between two sweaters, but there are other factors that make them different?
Guidelines for Evaluating Ease
The amount of ease you’ll want to have in your garment in order to achieve a specific fit can vary based on your project characteristics.
Fabric construction will often change the amount of ease you need to feel comfortable when you’re knitting plain stockinette vs. stretchy rib, or more rigid colorwork or cables. Gauge is also part of fabric construction: when working with the same yarn and stitch pattern, looser gauges will be stretchier and less structured than tighter gauges.
Fiber content will impact your wearing experience. Some fibers (like wool) have great memory/elasticity/“bounce” and will regain their original shape and size after being stretched or worn. Others, like cotton, lack memory and have a tendency to stretch out widthwise after wearing - Alpaca and linen can also grow during wear. Acrylic typically retains its shape after it has been heat-set with steam. Circling back to wool, not every wool will react the same way. Superwash wools may be stretchier (and may stretch out more) than non-superwash wools as the scales of the wool have been chemically removed or smoothed, so your stitches move more freely within the knitted framework. A high micron count merino may have more stretch and drape than a more rustic wool, and certain breeds of sheep inherently have more or less crimp in the fiber, leading to more (or less) elasticity in the yarn.
Yarn structure has a role to play as well. A single ply will not have much elasticity, so stretch will come more from the fabric construction. Plied yarns are like little springs - they will stretch out somewhat as you give a gentle tug. A yarn with a tighter ply will likely have more elasticity than a loosely tightly plied yarn, as the “coils” of the yarn can be stretched further before they reach a straight & taut state. Chainette yarns are almost like little i-cords where the fiber has been chained or knit into a tube that you knit with - this adds more elasticity into the yarn than the fiber content alone could create with a standard plied yarn.
Yarn weight also makes a difference: thinner yarns take up less space around your body and will still feel comfortable with a closer fit. Thicker yarns need more space around your body and the fabric structure is often less flexible, meaning that you may need more ease to keep a comfortable fit.
Evaluating Specific Yarn & Stitch Pattern Combinations
Knitted fabric moves and stretches with you as you wear it — you are a moving and breathing human after all! — but how much will vary based on the factors we just discussed. To get an idea of how stretchy (or not stretchy) your garment will be, you can spend a bit of time evaluating your swatch to understand the fabric characteristics of your project. A great way to do this is by comparing the comfortable stretch of swatch to a garment you already own to make a call on how much ease you’d like to use in a new project.
How to Measure Comfortable Stretch
Check out Part 1 of this series to see photos of marking & stretching your swatch.
Using safety pins or locking stitch markers, mark off a 4” horizontal section of your swatch.
Line up the left marker with the 0” mark of your measuring tape or ruler and hold secure with your left hand.
With your right hand, gently stretch your swatch underneath the ruler to a “comfortable” level - the fabric should be slightly stretched, but not look strained or distorted.
Write down the measurement that the right marker stretches to, rounding to the nearest 1/8”.
TIP: You may find it helpful to fold your swatch in half horizontally along the markers, and line the folded edge up with your ruler for easier measuring.
Measure the comfortable stretch of both your swatch and a garment that has a similar fit to what you’re looking for using the method above. If your swatch comfortably stretches to a similar number as your comparison (within 1/4”), that garment is likely in the right ballpark for the amount of ease you’ll want in your new project. If your swatch stretches to a bigger measurement than your comparison garment, you will likely want to have less ease in your new project because it can stretch more. If your swatch is less stretchy, you will want more ease than your comparison garment to make sure your new project doesn’t feel too tight.
In the end, it all comes down to personal preference, and what you are looking for in the fit of each specific project. Over time, you’ll learn your most typical ease preferences for different types of garments, as well as yarn weight, fiber content, and more!
Next time, we’ll dive into a closet evaluation so you can learn about the garments you’ve already made - or items that you’ve purchased - so you can start building your own library of ease preferences.
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