In Case You Missed it

Our August 2 guest speaker was Ana Campos

Ana Campos presented a delightful and informative program on Zoom. Besides being a Master Hand Knitter, she has a strong background in architecture. This “nuts and bolts” view of sweater construction and design was evidenced as she clearly summarized sweater styles based on the way in which the sleeves attach to the body. She then went on to describe each style – explaining and demonstrating their pros and cons for different body shapes.

In order to optimize the fit of a sweater she strongly advised us to measure our bodies, particularly when our bra sizes are larger than a B cup. For example, when there is a large difference between the upper bust and full bust, certain sweater styles are more difficult to modify.

Ana is a self-professed Virgo, so she is not afraid of “getting into the weeds” of sweater design. She showed how in using math skills we can extract much more information from a sweater schematic. By swatching before we begin, we have the crucial information we need: stitch and row gauge.

She took a sweater schematic and laid tracing paper over it to get the general outline of the sweater. She then proceeded to extract the “nitty gritty” of the sweater design by carefully reading the pattern and transferring this information to her schematic. In doing so she showed where we can make adaptations to the pattern for various body shapes (long/short waist, wider hips/bust, sleeve length, etc.)

Ana was a delight. Her presentation was interesting, informative, and well documented by pictures and diagrams. As she proceeded, she took time to answer questions as they popped up on the chat. I thoroughly enjoyed her presentation.

— Mary Barranger