I know I haven't been blogging about knitting for almost a month, but it's not like I haven't been knitting - just I've been doing it very very slowly. I'm very bad at stranded knitting - one reason - I knit with the yarn in front of the knitting, and when there are two or more colors passing through my pin, it usually quickly becomes a mess and keeping the right tension is quite a challenge. But this Knitty Deep Fall 2013 sweater has only a few sections of stranded knitting, so I thought I could manage it.
I made a few modifications to the original pattern, some good, some bad judgement.
1) I elongated the body a bit, making the rib longer and adding a row to the single color sections.
2) The sleeves are 3/4 long, repeating exactly the body.
3) I changed the waist fitting, distributing more evenly the increases and the decreases, still keeping the stitches multiples of 6, where it was necessary (the stranded sections).
4) When I reached the underarms, I decided to continue with the upper part, adding the sleeve stitches with provisional cast on. I do that often with raglan sweaters, as it provides a more neat connection between the sleeves and the body. I knew the V of the stitches on the sleeves would be ^ upside down, as the sleeves are knit in the opposite direction, but I thought I wouldn't mind that too much. However, when I began the sleeves, I found that I minded the difference a lot, so I unraveled the stranded diamonds, cut the yarn and started the sleeve from the wrist and then added it to the body with grafting. I think it worked alright and doesn't show. Now I'm working on the second sleeve (and fighting the second sleeve syndrome :). However, if I had to knit this or any other stranded sweater again, I would knit the sleeves first and then continue with the upper body.
5) I omitted the last C1 color section and instead added some length to the back in the C2 color section, using short rows. My first try actually included the C1 section and short rows in that section, but it didn't look alright with only two rows of orange in the front and 10 rows of orange in the back, the bigger yellow section worked better with the elongation of the back neck portion.
I'm almost done with the second sleeve, so I hope there will be a FO photosession later this week :)
Wow, I'd never seen that style of knitting before! No wonder colorwork is difficult for you! But you're doing a lovely job!
ReplyDeleteУх ты,как красиво!!!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of this technique and may have tried it for a beanie. But I went back to stranding with two hands right side out. You are doing a great job.
ReplyDelete