Saturday, November 2, 2013

who needs Sudoku?

To keep your brain active? if the rest of the world knew about machine knitting!! OMG!
Recently I had the opportunity to spend some time with my friend Cindy who’s made ‘Rich Raglan’ (Serial Stuff 2) three times, three different colours – all three looked great and she was asking me if she could make another because she loves the shape and fit of it and it really does flatter her figure – she says the raglan shaping takes all the guess work out of fitting shoulders and sleeves and she prefers the fit of the raglan. She probably thinks I’m going to be like Stacy and Clinton and say, no you cannot have multiples! But no, I’m okay with, if something works, stick with it. I have made it twice, the red with black trim and I did a solid French navy and I would also like another one or two!
So I came home thinking how could  we adapt some sort of stitch pattern to the raglan shape to make a bit of variety. I always thought that a raglan needed to be in plain stockinette because the angled shaping between the body and sleeves would mess up patterning and look mostly terrible in seaming.  But I got stuck on the idea to find a way to incorporate a lace pattern into the raglan.
I’ve loved my ‘Comfy’ (KW#28), worn it a lot and always get compliments from strangers – the stitch pattern has large areas of stockinette in it already and I thought with a little planning, it might work okay as a raglan. Now, I told you a while back that I had just realized that I do not have a white cardigan and conveniently, in checking my shelves I happen to have two cones of Honiburd 4/2 cotton, the same yarn as ‘Comfy’- not that I’ll need two, but I’m just saying…Also, the bands on the original cardigan are totally cute and I’ve meant to re-use that technique. 
So, I pull out my  No 28 magazine and look over the pattern and my heart stops – crap, I owe that DAQ lady in San Diego an apology!! Somehow  in the magazine layout, the tuck stitch pattern for the ribs is missing! WTF? well, it’s obvious that no one ever tried to knit this pattern! Huh! well, sorry! (better late than never, I guess!) Here is the stitch pattern for the tuck rib bands – it’s 12 sts X 4 rows – centered at 0/N1 cam at 0 or left needle position 12.


The gray squares should be knit stitches and the white are tucks and because it is 1X1 rib, there will be 3  every other row tucks on the main bed and 3 knit ribs – it really is pretty…
I could make this a really long, tedious story, but I’ll stick to the end result - I think it works!! I’ll finish up and post the results!
Meanwhile, I did get Vickie’s skirt put together and done – just need to get out and buy some elastic for the waistband. I’m working on my next KS project in between pieces of this white lace raglan – TTYL!



1 comment:

Lori said...

You should take a looknover on the Schoolhouse Press website. Meg is auctioning off many of Barbara Walker's original HK sweaters. One of them was a raglan with typical stockinette on the whole but somehow she had incorporated a lace pattern into the raglan shaping itself.

OK I suspect that the yoke may have been knit in the round but...there is apparently a solution.