Would you just look at this sweet, simple, ultra-versatile sweater — my future best friend — hanging around patiently with its waist missing? I can’t take it anymore. If you catch me working on anything other than this little chum over the weekend, please slap me around. My goal is to have it blocked and shot for next week.
Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to tell me what you’re working on!
.
This week I swatched one thing, cast on another, and the yarn arrived to finish knitting a third. Plus there’s still Acer waiting for me to fix my mistake and start moving forward again. It occurred to me maybe I should take stock of my WIPs and, uh, it’s much worse than I realized. So let’s just focus on the new guys:
The little blue swatch is for the sweater I promised my husband last fall. It’s meant to be Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Seamless Hybrid with Jared Flood’s modifications, because I’m so curious about the construction of the shoulders, but I may chicken out (by which I mean, take the more controlled path) and do it top-down. (I have until the swatch is laundered and re-measured to decide.) Bob is very, very particular about sweaters and I don’t want to risk it being even an inch short or long for his taste. I want him to love and wear it, when all is said and done.
The ivory wedge makes my heart go pitty-pat. One of the very first patterns (possibly the first pattern) I ever downloaded was Orlane’s Textured Shawl Recipe. I love that shawl more than I can say (so many beautiful renditions of it, including Nicole Dupuis’ seen draped over her couch here), but of course the “recipe” was utter greek to me at the time. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I could make sense of it and knit it. And all this time, pretty much every new yarn I meet, I ask myself if it’s the one — the one to become my Textured Shawl. I decided Pioneer is it. And I have to tell you, this combination of yarn and stitch pattern is nothing short of addictive. I cannot wait to get back to it.
Tell me about you, please! Thanks for reading this week, and have a wonderful weekend —
.
Oh hey look, I finished something! It’s literally just a sliver of a thing, and not even a standalone thing — just that aforementioned little belt for my Walpole — but it’s the first thing I’ve bound off in quite awhile. Normally, I remove these kind of belt-tie-thingies from cardigans because I think they make me look thick, but this cardigan needs some closure. What do you think — dowdy?
I hope everyone has a warm and wonderful weekend. I’ll be fixing the error in my Acer and marching onward! And/or maybe casting on something new. Of course, you know I’d love to hear about what you’re working on …
.
I’m pretty sure I knitted a grand total of 35 stitches this week — 5 thrilling rows of this 1×1 band of Kathmandu Chunky, which is meant to be a belt/tie for my Walpole cardigan. I’m juggling projects, as well as working on some new merch for Fringe Supply and sprucing up the blog design a bit — have you noticed? — which means I’ve spent late evenings with my laptop instead of my needles. But I’m determined to wall off a few hours this weekend for nothing but knitting. You?
By the way, I’ve recently fallen back in love with Instagram in a big way, and, have been seeking out inspiring makers and foodies and farmers to feed my psychovisual needs. Look me up if you’re there — I’m karentempler.
.
I rarely have time to work on this lovely Acer cardigan — I really should be finishing up the improv sweater, after all — but every hour I spend with it makes me so happy and proud of myself. There are really only two rows in the chart (one of which is “knit the knit stitches and purl the rest”), with the occasional cable thrown in. So once you get it in your head, it’s super meditative to knit. Hopefully I’ll get some quality time with both sweaters this weekend.
But here’s a little something I really want to share about this. The yarn is Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in the color Nest. I ordered it from Knit Purl about a year ago (with a gift certificate from my beloved friend Mignon — thanks, MK!) for a very simple stockinette cardigan I had in mind. I was a little disappointed with the color when I pulled it out of the envelope — it seemed a bit wan, to put it mildly. But I cast on for that cardigan and … quickly lost interest. By the time I decided I really hated it, the returns window had closed. Eventually, though, I realized the problem was the stockinette. What this color needed to give it more depth was exactly that — depth. The light and shadows that come from ribbing and cables and yarnovers. So that’s when I went looking for Slightly Lacy Cardigans and settled on Acer. And I couldn’t be happier — they’re a match made in heaven.
.
By the way, I don’t know if it’s on account of people packing away their winter woolens, or what, but there’s been a run on the jumbo cedar sachets in the shop lately. I almost hate to sell them, because they make my studio smell amazing, but there’s plenty to go around!
.
What are you working on this weekend?
OK, so! All that’s left once the body and sleeves are separated is to knit three tubes — a body and two sleeves. When you’re ready to work the sleeves, which you can do at any time, you simply put the live stitches onto DPNs (or whatever you prefer), reattach your yarn, and pick up and knit one stitch into each of the underarm cast-on stitches, again marking the center point of the underarm with a marker. You can make the body and sleeves as long or short as you like — from a cap-sleeved crop top to a long-sleeved dress. Totally up to you. Just knit to the desired length, work your ribbing (or whatever), and bind off.
SWEATER MATH
But that leaves the matter of shaping, for which there’s a simple formula. And it applies to all sweaters, so knowing how to do it is also beneficial in modifying a written pattern to suit your own shape.
Let’s consider a sleeve first, since it’s generally only shaped one direction — from larger (at the upper arm) to smaller (at the wrist). You already have your upper-arm measurement from your yoke calculations. (Mine is 12 inches, which at my gauge of 3.5 sts/inch is 42 sts.) Now measure your wrist and adjust for whatever ease you want there. I’d like my sleeve to decrease from 12 inches (42 sts) to 10 inches (35 sts) at the spot where I’ll start my cuff. Now measure the distance between where you want to place your first decrease and your last*, and multiply that number times your row gauge. My sleeve is already pretty slender and my arms are pretty straight down past my elbow, so I’m not going to work the first decrease until I get to my forearm. The distance from my first increase to my last will be only 5 inches; multiply that by my row gauge of 5 rows/inch and and I know I’ve got 25 rounds over which to work my decreases.
Decreases and increases are generally worked in mirrored pairs, one on either side of your marker — e.g., an SSK and a K2tog for decreases; an M1R and M1L for increases. So each decrease round on a sleeve removes 2 stitches. My first sleeve decrease round will take me from 42 stitches to 40. To get from there to 36 (rounding from 35), I’ll only decrease 2 more times (2 sts x 2 rounds = 4 sts decreased). And I have 25 rounds to do that, so I’ll decrease at the 12th and 25th rounds. (If you’re decreasing all the way down your arm — and/or working at a smaller gauge than I am — your equation will have you decreasing more often than that.)
A written pattern with “waist shaping” will assume you have an hourglass figure: The sweater will get smaller (decrease) as it approaches the waist, then larger again (increase) as it heads toward the hips. You may or may not be shaped that way, but you have the power to shape your sweater however you like. The waist shaping formula is exactly the same as above. Whether you’re sloping in or out, you measure the distance between the wider and narrower spots, then multiply that number by your row gauge — that’s how many rows you have to work your increases/decreases. Again, you want to work a mirrored pair of stitches at each marker, so in this case you’re adding or subtracting 4 stitches per round — 2 on each side. Calculate how many stitches you need at the widest point (circumference x stitch gauge), and how many at the narrowest. The difference is how many stitches you need to increase or decrease. Divide the difference by 4, since that’s how many stitches you’ll add/remove per round, and that tells you how many increase/decrease rounds you’ll work. Distribute those evenly between the allotted rounds.
I’m not doing any waist decreasing on this sweater, just knitting straight down from chest to waist, but then I’m increasing a few times so I can maintain my 2-inch ease at the hips. (My hips are a bit wider than my chest.) I’m starting out with 37 inches (130 sts) and want to increase that to about 41 inches (144 sts). We’re dealing with multiples of 4 for body shaping, so let’s say I’ll add 16 stitches (that’s 4 increase rounds), for a total of 146 stitches (130 + 16). And I’ll distribute those 4 increase rounds over a span of about 6 inches (30 rounds). My first increase round will get me from 130 stitches to 134. Three more increase rounds over 30 rounds means one every 10th round. Then I’ll work even until I’m ready to rib and bind off.
That’s all there is to it!
I’ll have some final thoughts for you, once I’ve finished this sweater. Just need to round up some more yarn for it …
.
*Whatever you do, be sure to keep detailed notes about your first sleeve, since you need to knit an exact replica for the other arm. You’ll want to know how long your sleeve was (from the underarm) when you worked your first decrease, and how often and how far apart you decreased after that, plus total length before you switched to ribbing.
.
POSTS IN THIS SERIES: [Favorite it on Ravelry]
Introduction / Part 1: Casting on and marking raglans / Part 2: Raglans and neck shaping / Part 3: Finishing the neck and yoke / Part 4: Separating the sleeves and body / Part 5: The art of sweater shaping / Prologue: The possibilities are endless
To quickly recap, you know you’re done knitting your yoke when you’ve met a couple of criteria: 1) You’ve worked enough increase rounds to attain the targeted number of stitches in each of your sleeve and body sections, giving you your desired dimensions (when factoring in the anticipated cast-on underarm stitches). 2) The raglans are long enough to reach the target spot, somewhere south of your armpit, where you’ll be casting on the underarm stitches. Note that I’ve added pics of my finished yoke to the previous post (and to the Ravelry page). Which means it’s time to talk about separating the body from the sleeves.
We’re going to do this with the assumption that the body will be knitted first, followed by the sleeves, although you’re free to proceed in any order you like. You’ve presumably finished a full yoke round, so you’re at your front-center marker. Drop that marker and work to your first raglan marker. You’ll also be dropping all of your raglan markers as you come to them. (Remember that what happens to any raglan seam stitches is up to you. I have two stitches running down the center of my raglans, and I’m splitting them right down the middle: One will become a body stitch and one a sleeve stitch.) Transfer the sleeve stitches onto waste yarn. On your right needle, cast on the number of underarm stitches you determined you’ll need, placing a marker in the center of them — e.g., I’m casting on eight stitches, so placing a marker after the fourth one. Then continue knitting across the back of the sweater. When you come to the right sleeve, same thing: Transfer the sleeve stitches onto waste yarn, cast on your underarm stitches, placing a marker at the center point, then continue with the front stitches. You’ve now got your body joined in the round, with a marker at the center of each side. The left-side marker is your new beginning of round.
For anyone knitting a cardigan, separate the sleeves and body as described above, ignoring the bits about joining in the round — just keep working the body back and forth like you have been.
The image above and detail shot below are of my sweater after the separation round — the sleeve stitches are on waste yarn, and you can see the cast-on stitches at the right underarm, with a white marker in the center of them. Below right is a photo of the sweater on me again after knitting just a few rounds of the body. If you want to knit an inch or two of your body, that’s fine, but don’t go too far until we talk about how to shape the body and sleeves. That’s all that’s left!
POSTS IN THIS SERIES: [Favorite it on Ravelry]
Introduction / Part 1: Casting on and marking raglans / Part 2: Raglans and neck shaping / Part 3: Finishing the neck and yoke / Part 4: Separating the sleeves and body / Part 5: The art of sweater shaping / Prologue: The possibilities are endless
