Amy Herzog is a knitting designer who has something called Custom Fit and it sounds amazing but I’ve never gotten into it. You pay a subscription fee and, depending on which of the two subscription choices you purchase, you can “custom fit” and download either up to two of her patterns per month (Maker Plan) or unlimited (Maker Plus Plan). If you choose the Maker Plus Plan and pay annually, there’s a 10% discount. I’m not affiliated with Amy or Custom Fit so there’s no incentive for me to talk you into buying her subscription. 🙂
My friend, Denise, uses Custom Fit for almost all, maybe all of her sweaters and she loves it. I think it will work super great for those of us what want a sweater that fits exactly the way we want it to fit. So many of the sweaters I love are written by very shapely young ladies and while those sweaters look great on them, they’re always too tight on my chunky arms. I can take a pattern and using my measurements and gauge, create a close to perfect fitting sweater but then I have to make a ton of notes as to where and what changes to make. Often patterns that are the right size through the bust, waist and hips will either have a neck opening too wide or a V-neck lower than I like.
With Custom Fit, I take my own measurements, use any of Amy’s patterns (and there are tons!), put in the gauge from my swatch of the yarn I want to use. The sweater may call for fingering weight yarn but simply by swatching and entering those numbers, I can use any yarn I want to use. That’s great because I’m not a fan of fingering weight sweaters.
There are all kinds of measurements I can change. Of course, there’s the bust, waist, hips, but also the shoulder width, and the front opening depth if applicable.
Another great thing – if the pattern calls for fingering weight yarn and I want to use a different weight yarn, I add my swatching info and the Custom Fit pattern tells me how much yardage I need – no guesswork!
Last night I swatched for Casco Bay Pullover. I wanted the neck opening to be a little smaller and I wanted the V-neck to be not quite so deep so I think I’ve changed all that. Now I’m ready to start knitting my first Custom Fit Amy Herzog sweater!
If you’re a sweater knitter and you want perfectly fitting knitted garments, you may want to check out Custom Fit.
Tracy says
Do you think this would work if one were to make a sweater for someone else? As long as you had their measurements? My sons are two different shapes and sizes, so making sweaters for them is always hit or miss.
Judy Laquidara says
So long as you have their measurements, it should work perfectly. You can store multiple sets of measurements in your “file”.