Last Episode - The Sleeves

Finally finished the sleeves.

and this is my chart. I am not going to explain the chart - if you read the history of this sweater you should know the meaning of all these codes by now.
I replaced the 'x' in the chart with 8 (by matching the parts together in different stages) but obviously it should be calculated individually, based on your body part size. And expect to have to frog, so consider a lifeline at some point, towards the end of the sleeve.

As you can imagine, a lot of guessing was involved in this - as I never did this kind of curvy sleeves before. I'm so glad though I finally moved out of the rectangle knitting land :).
I sew everything together on Sunday, the sleeves are perfect, just that I'm not sure I'm totally pleased with the neckband, so I might take one repeat off tonight. Or add another one ... One way or another, we'll have an FO soon.

Getting closer - The Neckband Story

I've tried a few combinations of yos and decreases for the neckband pattern, finally decided for this one.

In order to keep things Japanese, I coded the chart in the Japanese style and this will be your homework: to figure out the interpretation :).

It's a 6 stitches repeat pattern, so make sure you pick up a multiple of 6 stitches around the neckline - in case you want to use this pattern yourself, obviously.
I was quite lucky to get 96 stitches from the first picking attempt - this gave me exactly 16 repeats, (not 11 like I said before - thanks Joan for spotting this).

These are the moments when I feel God being on my side :).
Otherwise you have to increase/decrease a few stitches to get to a multiple of 6 stitches.

So, did you finish picking up the right number and knitting two rows of purled stitches?

Good - next thing - place stitch markers for your lace neckband - and of course I expect you to start placing them at the middle of front part first - in order to align the center stitch of the front with the center stitch (no. 4) of you neckband pattern. See the red line? That's the center I'm talking about.




Now, If you've done your homework right, that's what you'll be getting two hours later:




Neckband done. It does look a bit like the original ...but I'm not very sure about being identical.

I used my own method of casting off here - I invented it long time ago - but it might as well be a famous one - I never read any knitting books :).
...And it goes like this : * knit two tog, slip the stitch back to the left needle, purl two tog, slip the stitch back to the left needle * repeat from *. The p2tog produces a small bubble - and I thought they look nice in the overall context.

Right, next I am diving into the sleeves math and this is going to be tricky - stay tuned for the next episode.

More progress and decreases

I finally managed to finish the body - both parts, front and back - and I've started planning the neck band.

Just to say this again, I don't have the pattern book (and I gave up any hope to find the book anywhere online), so I'm doing my own thing here, just based on the pattern stitch from 250 Patterns Book. (Did I mention I love this stitch pattern? )

Right, and here's a progress picture.

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I designed my own sleeve decrease (based on another similar top pattern from Elegant Knit), which in Japanese reverse engineering would look like this:

The Japanese decreases (or increases) are coded with an 'one off' number of stitches to start with (optional), followed by several 'three numbers' sequences.

The 'three numbers' sequence has the following meaning : first number shows how many rows to knit after the last decrease, second number represents the number of stitches to be decreased and the third one tells you how many times to execute this decrease instruction.

So 2-3-1 means : knit another 2 rows - decrease 3 stitches - do this operation 1 time(s).

I've done a detailed chart as well, just so we see what's happening in real life, row by row.

Let's Knit Series #8 - Cover Sweater - Progress

Just thinking to post some progress pictures.

I expect the pattern to open up a bit after washing and blocking.
Both parts have the same size and I am going to stop here for the moment, till I get my books - as I think I need to start shaping for the sleeves now.
The yarn is lovely - if it's going to survive the washing test, I will definitely buy it again.

Now - this is a small part of my chart - just to show you that there aren't any major challenges in the pattern.

One repeat of the pattern is over 16 stitches and 30 rows - as shown at the bottom of the chart.

The background is always left blank - and every chart in this book will tell you at the bottom of the chart how to knit the blank squares (in case you can't just figure it out by looking at the associated swatch :)).

In my case, I'm purling all the blank squares (the horizontal line after the '=' sign stands for Purl) .
And more about Japanese knitting symbols here:

http://www.tata-tatao.to/knit/stitches/e-index.html

Let's Knit Series #8 - Cover Sweater - Part 1

Look, this is the beauty I'm going to try next, as the first entry of this blog.



It is the cover sweater from Let's Knit Series #8.
I haven't got the book yet but the chart is published in Knitting Patterns Book 250, first book in our list, so I've already started swatching, measuring and calculating.

That's my progress up to now.



Yarn : Debbie Bliss Cathay - very nice and soft cotton blend, unfortunately it does split like hell.
Needles : 3.75 mm
Pattern : based on the chart no 152, from Knitting Patterns Book 250, page 72.

First row (RS) : purl
Second row (WS): knit
Third row (RS) : start working in chart pattern.

I am doing 7 repeats of the pattern + 2 extra stitches for the edges = 115 stitches and this measures approx. 50 cm.

My gauge was 22 stitches = 10 cm in stockinette - obviously you'll need to swatch in the pattern as well.

The chart is very easy: just plain knitting, decreases (k2tog and ssk stitches) and yos.
The symbols are well explained and illustrated in the book appendix.

The only challenge with this pattern is that you work in pattern on both RS and WS - so there will be no relaxing times in between rows.