two sides to every story...

With sand dune/tan Wool Crepe Deluxe, I did the second piece, planning a shallow scoop, with a 6 cm depth. Working on auto-pilot, did the same shortrowing just after the hemline, shaped the sides and just as I got the underarm shaping almost finished, I thought to myself, self, this isn’t a sprint, you’re basically trying to fill in time here, so why not put a little effort into maybe doing a little hand-transferred lace? After all, that little diamond lace motif on the original black one is quite nice. I saw that it was too late for that because it needs to be done over 40 rows and at RC207, I was 7 rows past. Rip out? nah! make up something new! Using the same two-step technique from the original, start with a hole at #1 right to begin the same diamond motif and continue that to row 8, where there are 5 plain sts between the eyelets, add the start of another vee – I made a new chart for you (small pat on back) and just continue it up to where your neckline shaping begins.

After the neck shaping, again, I wanted to have a plain, no-finish edge, so picked up the stitches at each edge up to the top of the shoulder and then knit a loose row across all and chained off, similar to the vee technique.
Now, join the shoulders and you know, I just thought of something that I’ve been doing and haven’t talked about for a while, but check this out – https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/11/wonky-shoulder.html
it makes the shortrowed steps of the shoulder shaping look better when you knit two rows after the shaping.

Because of the two colours, make sure and join each side the same, hang the tan/lighter colour first then the darker one, pull the dark sts through the light set and then make the chain with the same colour (light). That way, they both look the same on the outside.
I still needed to add a band/hem to the armhole – it was too gapey without anything. I like mine close-fitting and I thought you might be a little afraid to do this, so I took some photos. When the armhole was held up to the needles to determine the size, I got 72 -0-72 sts.  

MAO told you originally:
Armhole bands. Hold armhole evenly up to needle bed without stretching, reduce by 10% to determine number of needles required. Approx 50 (54, 58, 62, 64) ns each side of 0. Right side facing you, hang garment over same needles, gathering to fit if needed. Turn band and rehang from garter bar, with right sides together. Pull open stitches of band through closed edge of garment. Manually knit very loose row and chain cast off.
Based on that, 10% less would be 65-0-65 ns. Going by my notes from the black one, the armband was 60-0-60 ns and it was good. When hanging the armhole, it looks rather scary in this first photo – like, that’s never gonna fit right! Hang the shoulder seam at 0 and then start hanging the straight part, evenly, without gathers, leaving those to the actual curved, underarm area. It won’t show after the band is on and you’re wearing it, trust me!
I’m ready for another! you?

epic...

Seems to me like this project is taking forever or is it just my imagination? My first post on this was almost three and a half weeks ago - that’s a long time for me to have something in the works. You won’t believe this, but summer has got in the way and is continuing! Usually if we get two nice days in a row, we are pretty lucky and we make jokes about summer was on a Tuesday this year. Many times, we have a hard frost around Labour Day but not this year, it’s still really lovely and green and I’m taking advantage of the nice weather! I just had to share this photo – my favourite piece of graffiti ever, spotted at the top of a hill on my favourite local hike!
Finally got both pockets done, put the sleeves in and can try this on to decide further design elements and I just remembered I promised a little note here about the needle arrangement and where to have your underarm shaping end to give the nicest

following the black line

seaming. According to my schematic, I should be decreasing to #50 at the end of the underarm and then continuing straight up to the shoulder line. #50 happens to be a rib stitch and I know that won’t look so great (experience!). The seamline will look best if there are two purl stitches at the edge, one for the seam and one beside the rib stitch so I actually decrease to #48 which gives me the two stitches on the main bed at the edge – you might wonder why I went smaller instead of bigger? Mostly because this being a rib fabric, it is stretchier than just stockinette and I like my shoulder/sleeve to fit nicely, not sloppy – I am going for a close fit here, not like I’m wanting to layer a fleece jacket under this cardigan.
Another note – at the top of the shoulder, I did shortrow about a 1.5 cm slope which is about 5 to 6 rows. Bearing in mind that I’ve said to shortrow on the main bed only (transfer rib stitch up before holding), at the end of the shortrows, everything is on the main bed, I knit a row to get rid of the wraps and remove the shoulder on waste. When rehanging to join the shoulder, on the first piece that is hung, purl side facing, pull out that row of stockinette. Then, after hanging the second side (you can't rip out this row because it's the wrong way), pull this set of stitches through the first/back set to make the join and there will only be one row of stockinette which gives a nice dividing line between the two pieces.
Happy seaming!