Sweater-grading math: fun? Or crazy-making?

How about some numbers? So I looked up the standard measurements for German baby clothing sizes and multiplied those chest measurements by my gauge (2.8sts/cm, if you must know) and got... some odd results. Frex, size 80 (10-12 months) and size 86 (13-18 months) came out pretty much the same, so I have all these little two-month ranges and then suddenly this sweater will fit your infant for nearly a year. That seems unlikely. Quite a few of these sizes seem profoundly unlikely, actually.

Size	50	56	62	68	74	80-86	92	98	104-110	116	122
Fits	newborn	1-2m	2-3m	4-6m	7-9m	10-18m	1.5-2y	2.5-3y	3.5-5y	5.5-6y	6-6.5y
cast on	80	88	88	96	96	104	104	112	112	120	120
sts/section	10	11	11	12	12	13	13	14	14	15	15
Increase rounds
r4 r12 r20 r28 r36 r44	14 18 22 25 — —	15 20 24 28 — —	15 20 24 29 — —	16 20 24 28 30 —	16 20 24 28 32 —	18 22 26 30 33 —	18 22 26 30 34 —	18 22 26 30 33 35	18 22 26 30 33 36	20 24 28 32 35 37	20 24 28 32 35 39
Divide after r	32	36	36	38	42	42	42	44	44	48	48
Stitch count
Total per section	200 25	224 28	232 29	240 30	256 32	264 33	272 34	280 35	288 36	296 37	312 39
Front & back	55	62	64	66	72	74	76	75	80	82	87
sleeves	45	50	52	54	56	58	60	62	64	66	70

[I don't know why Blogger's inserting these weird indents.]

Bear in mind that all of these numbers were achieved with an online baby size chart and the calculator in my phone. No knitting was perpetrated on any of these sizes except for the smallest one. 

So yeah, I'll probably need some test knitters.

Grading the Lucky Baby Lopapeysa

The other night I went down a rabbit hole of sweater-grading math, and now I have a bunch of columns of mysterious numbers. There was some serious figgery-pokery going on (that's like jiggery-pokery, only with numbers): this is the math I would have to do to get the numbers I already have, so if I apply that math to these other numbers, hey presto! A knitting pattern that may or may not work, in five sizes in addition to the one I already have (what sizes? According to the Craft Yarn Council's chart, an improbable assortment indeed).

This would seem to be the time to call for test-knitters, but I'm hesitating. I should figure out the numbers for a raglan variant before I do that, and then I would have to commit to being able to answer questions over the next few weeks, and hey, it's early spring. My goldfish attention-span is way worse at this time of year and I could wander off at any minute. Maybe I should just test-knit all eleven sweaters myself to avoid having to deal with other people.

Yeah, because that requires less attention-span? Sigh, no: Because it carries less potential for disappointing people.

Oh right, this exists.

It's less contrasty
in real life

I seriously had no idea it had been that long since my last blog post.

So the WeatherCAL that Arja invited me to! Is making progress! I do fall behind occasionally, but I'm all caught up now. I've made a few changes to the color scheme – that jump from yellow to pink was just too abrupt, so I went in search of an orange. That is not the fashion color this season; no solid sock yarn at all, and the other types at that gauge were all danger-sign bright, so I bought a 100g skein of gradient orange-ish sock yarn and now I have to figure out how to use only the darkest bits. Fortunately orange is for 25°–27°, so the light should be good enough by then. If I were using it for a temperature likely to occur in January, I'd be sunk.

My progress so far

The colors now

 This is fun! I'm finding it takes about half an hour to crochet one square and attach it to the blanket. I really love the colors it is right now, but I sure hate what they represent: it's COLD! I mean okay, the lows happen in the middle of the night when I'm snug a-bed, but that little green square is my favorite one so far and I am looking forward to having more of them.

I promise to try and update a little more often than every two months from here on out.