Partial Eureka

I dreamed short rows last night (when I wasn't dreaming about running up and down the steps of my college dorm from 20+ years ago, that is) and I think I've got the mental picture now of what those other SKB bloggers were saying.

They were making one long short-row pouch in the front, after the join, and in my head, I imagined you would do a short row section for each, um, bosom, prior to the join.

I have no knitting experience with short rows, but I'm hoping all those years of sewing and pattern fitting will guide me: either of these short row placements will add the extra length I need, but if you do two short row sections instead of one, the portion above the empire line/lace work will be more like a bra. I want the empire line to be straight and perpendicular to the center front and I want it to land where my bra band is... no riding up in front. And I want the bottom of the V to hit very close to the purl bumps, just like in the photo. On my body, it's the position of the V against the empire line that makes this design tummy slimming and chest-minimizing at the same time—visually divides that area in three.

But now at least it makes sense why these other instructions weren't making sense to me. If that makes any sense.

So now the trick is to figure out how to do what I want to do. Since I have two repeats of the increase stitches left to knit, I think I can use the first repeat to do short row shaping on each front, then use the second repeat to do the reverse short row shaping. Because there are increases involved in other parts of these same rows, I will have to use lots of markers to make sure my short row and reverse short row sections line up.

And I'm wondering if I didn't halfway figure this all out in my dream because, when you think about it, working short rows is a lot like running up and down the steps. Brains are so cool.