Poncho By Bergère de France. Modifications and Details

On Tuesday I blogged about my work in progress - the Poncho by Bergère de France, some of the modifications I had already done and some planned and I said I would take a break from the poncho to knit some legwarmers in the yarn I had dyed that day. But approaching the end of Part 1 of the Poncho my knitting mojo kicked in and with the rows significantly shortening I soon found myself knitting faster and faster to finish it quicker. I also noticed that I'll have some yarn left and I could do the legwarmers in the alpaca and make them a set with the poncho. As I did quite a lot of modifications on Part 2 and I believe they might be of interest to other people planning to knit this beautiful free pattern (one of the best ponchos out there, IMHO), I'll try to sum them up:

Part 1:
1. I cast on 384 sts with provisional cast on, knit 4 rows of St st and with 4 mm circular needle. Changed to 4.5 mm circular needle and began with the pattern - 25 sts for the cable part and 23 sts for the stockinette sections. My first decrease was as per instructions - on the 15th row from the cast on row.
2. For Part I I followed the instructions and made the decreases on every 8th row until I was left with 224 sts - 200 sts for the 8 Cable parts (8 x 25) and 8 x 3 sts in the St. sections. I knit 5 rows on the remaining 224 sts.
3. I also made the decreases to slant to the inside of the stockinette section and not vice versa as in the pattern.

Apart from casting in the round and reducing the stockinette section by two stitches, which led to less width and 8 rows less in length (one less decrease), I pretty much followed the pattern in this section.

(I forgot to take a close-up picture of this part in the day time, thus the different color)

Judging by the work done by other ravelers  on this pattern and my calculations, Part II comes too wide and not at all high necked as in the pattern photo. So I made the following changes to the pattern:

Part II
Do the decreases, meanwhile continuing with the cable pattern.
1. Row 1 - Decrease each 3-st Stockinette section into 1 st: 224 -> 208 sts
2. Row 2 - knit 208
3. Row 3 - Decrease the one knit stitch, that remained in each St section. The two purl st columns are now combined into one 4 stitch column: 208 -> 200 st
4. Row 4 - Knit 200 sts
5. Row 5 - Decrease one purl st in each four purl column. Now you have 16 cable columns, divided by 16 3-st purl columns: 200 -> 192 sts
6. Rows 6 to 12 (a total of 8 rows) - knit 192 sts
7. Row 13 - Decrease one purl st in each 3-st purl column: 192 -> 176 sts
8. Rows 14 to 20 - knit 176 sts
9. Row 21 - Decrease one purl st in each 2-st purl column: 176 -> 160 sts
10. Rows 22 to 28 -  knit 160 sts
11. Row 29 - Decrease the last purl st in each 1-st purl column: 160 -> 144 sts
12. Rows 30 - 34 - knit 144 sts

In this part the purl stitches are done with and the decreases are made within the cables:
13. Row 35 - decrease one stitch in each 9 sts cable: 144 -> 128 sts
14. Rows 36 to 40 - Knit 128 sts
15. Row 41 - decrease one stitch in each 8 sts cable: 128 -> 112 sts
16. Rows 42 to 44 - knit 112 sts
17.  Row 45 - decrease one stitch in each 7 sts cable: 112 -> 96 sts
18. Rows 46 to 48 - knit 96 sts
19. Row 49 - decrease one stitch in each 6 sts cable by knitting two knit stitches as one purl stitch. Now your have sixteen 4-st cables divided by 1 purl stitch each : 96 -> 80 sts
Change to 4 mm circular needles:
20. Rows 50-52 - knit 80 sts
21. Row 53 - Decrease every other purl stitch. Thus you have eight sections of cables, divided by a purl stitch. 80 -> 72 sts.
22. Rows 54 - 69: knit 72 sts, continuing the cables every 8th row
23. Row 70: cast off. I used 2-st attached I-cord.

Part III - The Sleeves

As my cast on stitches were alive, I knitted the sleeves seamlessly attached to the body by picking up the 25 sts of the cable + 3 sts on each side of the cable + 9 sts cast on with provisional cast on = 40 sts total. I knit 33 rows of 2x2 rib, 1 row of 1x1 rib by switching stitches, 1 row of double knit and I cast off using invisible cast off. This is a stretchy, yet very neat method to prevent sleeve rib ends from flaring.

After knitting the two sleeves I cast off all of the provisional cast on stitches of the body and the sleeves in one continuous 2-st I-cord.

The above description is more like a recipe rather than complete instructions. You have to figure out the cables for yourselves and your gauge might be different than mine or may be the same, but on different needle sizes. I got the same gauge as in the pattern: 16 sts x 22 rows in St st for a 10 cm square and one 9-sts cable is 5 cm on 4.5 mm needles.

Modeled photo-session - coming soon, I hope!

And who said adults can't have fun - I wound up my newly hand-dyed yarn on the cone, left from the alpaca, using my daughter's pottery wheel. The result isn't exactly spectacular, but it was fun :)))