was totally stoked...

that I had a plan! Knit up a quick swatch of the ‘Briggs and Little’ Durasport – it is their sock yarn but is slightly heavier that the high-priced, balled sock yarn. It’s a one ply, 80% wool, 20% nylon, 4 oz/113g/430yds skein and although it’s been around for years, there’s only like 8 colours for some reason. I had made myself a hoodie with fairisle stripes https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2015/12/random-thoughts-confessions-rest-of-plan.html , wore it a few times and then abandoned it, not sure exactly why but I chalked it up to the yarn not being as nice as the Forsell 4 ply I was used to. https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-final-of-that-4f-thing.html Could have been no pockets, though - got fed up with it by then…
So now, looking at the leftover skeins, I initially thought I’d have more than enough for a jacket for a man. 400 yds times about 8 skeins means 3200 yds and on the standard gauge, you’d have plenty. I had made the swatch on the LK150, double stranded, T9, washed and dried it, liked the look and feel but something held me back. I had also wound all the skeins into machine-useable cones and somehow it didn’t look like quite so much. I was excited to have a plan and wanted to get going – on the bottom of the swatch, I had made a small, quick hem – starting off single strand, every-other-needle, just for the cast-on, then all needles and  at T4, still single, knit about 12 rows. I could see it was not the weight I wanted and that’s when the idea to go double-strand came to mind. So, hung the EON row to make a hem, added the second strand, dialed up to T9 and made the swatch. After laundering, I loved the little single-strand hem, it did the job of making a nice bottom, didn’t pull in too much and was totally easy. The other option I was considering was making 1X1 ribs on the standard gauge machine and transferring them to the LK. Thought that would be less bulky that going with the doubled stockinette bands of the original garment but wasn’t looking forward to the extra work of moving everything from machine to machine if you know what I mean.
Tempted to throw caution to the wind, I could just start knitting and see how far the first two cones would take me but the thought of having to unravel double-stranded knitting stopped me. Decided to be scientific about it. Weighed the swatch. It’s 30g. Took the swatch and laid it out on the tweedy pullover, counting how many swatches would make up the entire area of the sweater – 6 for each sleeve and 10 for each back/front, total of 32 swatches times 30g means 960g total – more than a little shy – considering pockets and hood and a cardigan should be slightly larger than the pullover! Back to the drawing board?
On the plus side, got both pieces made, successfully, for the Rib’nShrug and the pattern well underway! ;)

cross knitting...

the action or practise of mixing elements of two separate patterns to create a new design.
I’ve thought about this and thought about it some more and to be honest with you, I’ve let any excuse get in my way of jumping in.

Side Steps

I’m merging two of my previous designs. Side Steps, a sideways- knit cardigan with shortrowed gores that add an A-line shape to the body - the Back and Fronts are knit, shoulders joined and then the sleeve is picked up from open stitches and knit down to the cuff. Why? Because it already has the basic shape I want for that Eileen Fisher knockoff. Easy to turn it into a pullover – just keep knitting across the front instead of leaving an opening that would make it a cardigan.
Then the other pattern is Rectangles from Serial Stuff 4. Why? It’s done with Wool Crepe Deluxe which is the yarn I’m going to use here and it had automatic longstitch facings (that I want to use for the new neckline and hemline) and, bonus, a one-row-tuck stitch pattern that will combat the possible biasing of the loose-tension sideways knit (I have 500g of this Norwegian Slate WCD that am certain with the loose tension will be enough to get this knit without too much running-out-of-yarn stress).

Rectangles

So, you probably figured me out already – I’m going to attempt this without reswatching! Just use the same tensions and numbers as Rectangles and put them into the same basic shape as Side Steps. It’s all there, just getting to it seems the issue. I did Rectangles with DAK for the tuck patterning source but if you recall my DAK laptop computer bit the dust a while back and even though I have a very long cable that will reach across the room to my old desktop, which also has DAK7 on it – that machine has been making weird noises and I think it’s on it last legs. Today, I bit the bullet and just drew the 12X20 stitch pattern onto a mylar – took me at least 10 minutes from printing out the template from my DAK8 laptop (which I’ve never been able to get to work with my SL4 thingy that went from DAK7 to the knitting machine). My other option would be to install DAK7 on the current working laptop, but I’d need a life – another excuse!
This may not work but I’ll have had the joy of sharing it with you! More diversion! :)

every trick in the book...

I swatched and then I swatched some more! My stockinette tension/stitch size is T10 and I did get the same stitch and row gauge with both yarns.

Just Ribbin'

The back of GW is pretty simple. For that wide, deep rib, I chose 3X3 rib in the 3X2 needle arrangement – see Just Ribbin’ KW# 50 at a fairly high stitch size –  T8/8 because I don’t want it snugging in – want it to be as wide as the stockinette and the reason I went with the 3X2 needle arrangement means there are more stitches in the ribbing (when transferred up to the main  bed, there will be 2 sts on every 3rd needle but it doesn’t really show) than the stockinette to help maintain the same width. If you are reading me regularly, you might notice that I didn’t say that I made the sleeves first – I made the back first because I’m not really sure how far these yarns will go and how much there is – I did the back using Elvis because the label did have a yardage on it so it will help me judge how far this will go. It took 136g, leaving 264g, and I’m certain I can get both sleeves from the rest of him. Also, no disrespect, but Elvis has some thick and thin, like the spinning was not as smooth and consistent as the Bob Carver cone which I knew had to be for the fronts and will likely take considerably more than the back because of the extended lapels for the shawl collar.
The big unknown with this design is that 1X1 rib on the hem of the front – it looks like 1X1 but it’s as wide as the stockinette and just plain 1X1 wouldn’t be. So, I swatched full needle rib – too wide and too thick. I did the ‘1X1 on main bed with all working on the rib bed’ like on Granville https://knitwords.blogspot.com/2011/09/caught-stealing-agin.html
– still looks too wide. Tried 1X1 rib at T10/10 double stranded – that didn’t work! I was also working on the idea of an automatic longstitch facing for the centre side of the front – there is no finishing band apparent. I am assuming there is maybe a narrow longstitch, so I put 4 sts on RB, knitting every other row to finish that side. In a couple of the shots from the Shopbob website it  sort of looks like the front is angled up slightly – that may be from the longstitch facing pulling up the centre side somewhat or because they have actually shortrowed an angle to the front after the rib and the nice garter-stitch ridge after the rib is hiding the shortrows…lots to think about as I work on the sleeves. Maybe I’m over-thinking again! Just as I fell asleep last night I thought, what about tuck rib?