It’s always a pleasure to see the Plucky Knitter sisters and crew at Stitches events, and last weekend I also got to see a lot of the samples from their new pattern collection, Spring Forward. Somehow their crazy-plucky color palette makes me wish I were a color person, and yet you know I’d likely knit all of these things, my favorites of the bunch, in a nice heather grey—
TOP LEFT: Beach Walk by Jill Zielinski, a simple shrug with a nice lace motif up the back
TOP RIGHT: Lake Effect by Amy Miller, a sweet granny-chic lace cardigan
BOTTOM LEFT: Screen Door, an allover textured-lace shawl, which I would like in this green, actually
BOTTOM RIGHT: Tide Chart by Amy Miller (pictured on Amy with her Porch Swing shawl), a good ultra-basic, top-down pullover (if you’re not ready to improvise your own)
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PREVIOUSLY in New Favorites: The hats of BT Men Vol 2
oooh – love that “beach walk”! for some reason, these semi “blanket like” shawls are calling me! I’ve made two this spring and they are so practical – make great gifts. currently working on Farmhouse Shawl from cabinfour in Berroco Maya, a cotton and alpaca blend – a gift for a special friend!
thanks for the inspiration, Karen – I’ve “favorited” beach walk !
I’ve got Beach Walk snagged in my Favorites on Ravelry. Madly in love with it! Especially as I live on an Island in Puget Sound and walk beaches. I can picture myself wearing it all too well! That back and end of sleeve pattern – oh wow!
Right on for the neutrals!
Since I happen to have 5 skeins of Plucky Crew, Tide Chart calls to me. But I know the crew neck will feel too high and right to me. Karen, where should I look for advice on lowering the neck?
It’s top-down, so just check the neck measurements on the schematic and cast on whichever size neck you like, then work until you have the stitch counts for the bust and upper arm dimensions you prefer. That “improvise your own” link up there (I’m on my phone or would find and include it here for you) goes to my top-down tutorial, which is full of all kinds of math guidance and advice — will help you understand how to adapt any top-down to your own liking.
Thank you!
I think how you modify depends on whether you want the neckline to be wider all the way around (like a casual, cut-out-sweatshirt look) or if you only want the neck to be lower in front (jewel/scoop/v-neck). It may be easiest to lower the front and stick with the pattern for the rest, since I think Tide Chart might use short rows to shape the upper back (?). If so, that’s no impediment to lowering the front neckline; front neck mods only affect what you do between the front two raglan increase markers.
Karen’s excellent series spells it out well (http://fringeassociation.com/2013/03/14/how-to-improvise-a-top-down-sweater-part-2-raglans-and-neck-shaping/), but in case it’s helpful to have more than one source, try this too: http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html (discussion of v-necks at the end). And for an example of shaping a fairly dramatic top-down raglan scoop neck, see this free pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tomato. You could use the same method to make a shallower scoop, you’d just join to work in the round sooner.
I’ll also say, having knit another Amy Miller raglan, I think she is very good at designing flattering sweaters in that style. Yes it’s a simple construction method, but there are quite a few details you can tweak to improve the final look/fit and I really liked her design choices in the raglan pattern of hers that I knit.
Thank you! Now I’m excited about this project.
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