in the pocket....

I am so glad those blues didn’t work out because this cream lace long cardi hoodie is gonna be gorgeous!

marker row for pocket

One of the big things about knitting lace is bad needles and the horizontal line stitch pattern will show everyone, because it uses every single needle to transfer one way or the other. On my sleeves, everything behaved perfectly but when it came to the wider Back, every time #63 Right transferred to #62, when the carriage was moving to the left, it dropped. This happened every 6th row. After fixing the dropped stitch a few times, to prevent the dropped stitch, on the 5th row, I transferred that stitch manually and left the empty (#63) needle in work and the subsequent row would be perfect. At the end of the piece, I replaced both #62 and 63, because you don’t know which one was messing up. BTW, do me a favour and throw out those needles – there’s no use saving them – you usually can’t tell by looking at them and you’ll only have messed up stitches again by re-using them! I’ve been to your house – I know you keep them!
Of course, there are pockets! No question, but I’m going to do an inside-bag pocket – the Minneapolis Founder’s Fest (July 28, 29, 2018 - http://www.midwestmachineknitters.org/events/foundersfest/ ) knitters are bound to be impressed. In fact, I will leave one off, to complete as part of my demo for them! Not sure if I’ve told you this already or not, but, where to put the pocket opening? For patch pockets, you can pin them on after the fact, try it on, change your mind and move them, but with this one you need to know ahead of time. What I do - I want the opening of the pocket to be below-the-waist/high hip area where it feels comfortable to have your hand in a pocket so measure down from the underarm 35 cm, a little lower than I explained because there is a 2 cm pocket top above this point, added after.

swatch with marker row

 

hang first side

If you remember, there needs to be plain stockinette above and below the marker row of where the actual pocket is to be attached. Last time, http://knitwords.blogspot.com/2018/03/a-pocket-in-lace.html to get that stockinette, I unknit the lace and untransferred the stitches to make it stockinette and here, over the 32-st width of the pocket opening, it took some time. For the row above the marker row, it was easier to hand transfer the stitches that were supposed to be lace, leave the empty needles in work, turn the cam tto stockinette and let the carriage think it was knitting a whole row of stockinette - I felt like a brain surgeon for figuring that out! Just remember to switch back to lace for the next row. When I turned the work for the next pattern, for a minute, my heart dropped like a stone - I thought the pocket was going to be on the wrong side! False alarm, it's all good! 

hang pocket top, wrong side facing

 

hang bottom edge after knitting bag

If you would like my handout on this pocket technique, you know the drill – email me!

-MAO, aka pocket scientist
P.S. I shouldn't have to tell you I'm using my Silver Reed, but all this can be done on a brother machine too.