The Bikini Experiment - Analysis of the Data

Bikini Top - First Go

My bikini top was completely finished. This shot shows the band being picked up. It was the perfect width. I knitted my casing, but when I drew the elastic through it, a stitch got snagged on the interior, requiring me to reknit. No worries there, because 6-8 rows go by so fast. I triumphantly tried on my creation, and immediately decided to reknit the whole top smaller, except for the total band length. That would have to stay the same.



If you are aware of this pattern, you can see that the sizing up and down results in the band length going up and down with it. So to solve around this, I made a spreadsheet. Excel has to be the best program in the world for doing knitting calculations. Decide on your formula and fill series for size options, do calculations for pattern repeats, and generally save yourself a lot of paper.

To resize this pattern, I set up my spreadsheet like this:

Row #	# vertical st	# side st	total stitches
1	=[# vertical st] -(rounddown[Row #]/4)	=roundup([# vertical st]/2)	=[# vertical st] + [# side st]
**	**	**	**

Then, I filled series down for about 30 rows. Since I knew how many stitches I wanted to have on my needle when you make the turn in the cup, I was able to select from the rows that provided the desired number of stitches. Note that some of these Excel terms might be spelled wrong, but Excel will give you the correct spelling if you search in the help menu. These are spelled to give you the understanding of what they do. Excel is powerful. Use it.

I just finished the second cup last night at D&D. I'm picking up the stitches for the band this weekend, and hope to have it finished by Monday.

The bottom is finished, including the elastic in the casing. I'm not satisfied with the shaping in the front, so I might rip that portion and reknit.

scrap crochet bedspread

scrap crochet bedspread, originally uploaded by hairycarrot.

Being impatient and experimental made me create this blanket. Most people I knew at the time, if presented with a box of scraps, ball ends, and single skeins would have thought, "gee, a box of junk." I saw my mom's stash of random and said, "Perfect. I'll make a blanket."

I went through the Columbia Minerva Crochet stitch dictionary and tried out any pattern with a base height of one. It's worked in 2 long panels from three people's somewhat dated leftovers. The edging is a combination of three patterns, modified to fit together.

instructions i almost follow

instructions i almost follow, originally uploaded by hairycarrot.

I should have posted this sooner, but yeah right. I'm loving the Great Bikini Experiment. I'm trying really hard to follow the pattern, and I almost did it. I've got everything there but the garter stitch. I'm using a seed stitch rib instead. This way I only have to knit on the front, and k1p1 across the back for the first cup and purl across the back and k1p1 on the front for the second cup. I like to repeat stitches heavily, even though they are essentially the opposite of each other. There is not reason for this, other than my own entertainment.
Of course, when I got to the second cup, I had to reverse all the shaping and the cast on. I was starting on the back side of the cup instead of the front. I use the Old Norwegian cast on for stretch. On the second side, I completely inverse this so that my working on the wrong side still produces a matching edge.
With the shaping, I switch from decreasing at the beginning of wrong side rows (pattern method) to the end of right side rows. Of course, this is still the same row numbers as in the pattern, but sounds completely different from description.