Yet another cardigan!

Every time I mention to my mother that I'm knitting something, and she asks what it is, and I tell her it's a cardigan, there is a moment of silence. Then she asks: "How many do you have?"

The true answer is that I don't know, but that one more always seems like a great idea.

This particular one promises to be a Very Useful Garment, in the appropriate season. Which would be summer, or at least warm spring or fall. There is a possibility of more days like that in 2017, but let's be realistic. Here's another garment for later.

The technical details are that it's machine knitted, using my Singer 360 and its lace carriage. The yarn is silk (originally Loro Piano) from Colourmart. It's grippy and not shiny, but feels finer and crisper (better quality) than silk noile. The fabric is light but (as I sit here wearing it on a coolish September day) warm and comfortable.

I actually punched a card to get this nice regular eyelet fabric. Every fourth row, the lace carriage forces every 8th stitch onto its neighbouring needle and then knits all of them, leaving holes on those emptied needles. It's the machine-knitting equivalent of YO, K2Tog. But faster!

The part of Summer Move On
I really liked

I think she's got it!

I was inspired by a hand knitting pattern called Summer Move On. It has a similar eyelet fabric and a drapey waterfall front. The transition from the sleeve to front drape and collar is really lovely and that was what attracted me to the pattern, along with the fabric.

When I purchased the pattern and analyzed it, however, I realized I would not like the garment at all. It's basically a modified shrug back, with two big rectangular pieces for fronts.

I'm not a fan of shrug knitting patterns. (For non-knitters, think of a rectangle whose length is as long as you want your sleeves on your outstretched arms and across your back. Sew the long sides to each other until the seamed tube is sleeve length. Put on.) The geometry of a shrug forces the sleeve seams to the front, where they are then visible. Seams in knitting are not all that beautiful. This is why the vast majority of shrug knitting patterns feature the back or side view of the garment, and don't show you the front view.

To see how the shape of the Summer Move On pieces fit together to form the garment, I mocked up the back/sleeves piece using some nasty woven fabric.

Shape of back piece

With sleeves pinned

Back

Bienvenidas

As you can see, while the T shape produces a nice diagonal line, this makes for some pretty horrible bagginess in back. I went looking for some more inspiration, and found a free pattern with a waterfall front called Bienvenidas. It has a closer fit with raglan sleeves. Its diagonal waterfall front is a bit neater than you would get with a big rectangle.

My made-up pattern uses a shape modeled on Bienvenidas with the collar line of Summer Move On.

Front blocking

I'm very happy with the technical aspects of this cardigan. The knitting went well. I learned how to fix the lace when it didn't knit properly (mostly it did).

I managed to do a clean knitted finish on the "lapel" area, which looks pretty good. If you click on the photo of the front blocking you will be able to see that the stitches from the front edge turn the corner and continue horizontally along the top edge of the lapel, before heading up the side of the neck.

I'm happy with the fit too, although I probably should have knitted about 3cm additional length in the sleeves. They are "bracelet length" which, to be fair, is perfectly fine for a warm weather cardigan. For fun, I made some tucks at the sleeve cuff. Maybe they will stay pushed up, maybe not.

I wonder what I should make next? It may be time for fall sewing, but first there will be yet another non-blogged interlude while the Sewing Lawyer goes on a trip!

This is what I was working on

Why yes, it's crazy bright!

But also thin and drapey. Should be perfect for summer, if summer ever comes to these parts. (The furnace came on this morning!)

There are lots of details in my previous post and more serious information can be found on my Ravelry project page.

The short form is:

147g
100% tencel
44cm x 60cm, approximately

The colour is more accurate in the other photos

I always like to see knitting laid flat so I can assess how it is constructed. As you can see, this top has a very simple shape.

There are some short rows at the top of the stripey lace portion and below the band of ribbing at the top of both front and back. This serves to introduce a bit of slope at the shoulder, so the cap sleeve isn't too big and floppy.

I added some subtlety to the construction by making the back a tiny bit (1.5cm or so) longer than the front. This is in the top ribbed band only. The point is to allow the shoulder seam to shift forwards in wearing. This does two things at once. It lowers the top of the front neck, and it prevents the back from riding up. Basically, I think the shoulder seams would have shifted forward anyway; this just lets them lie there naturally.

The arm openings are finished with a line of single crochet. This helps the edges lie flatter, and simultaneously takes care of some (ahem) knitting imperfections.

The back is otherwise identical to the front.

I like it! Since it took less than one cone, I'm hoping to exchange the other for a different colour. I may need two of these.

But it won't be for a while. I had to put the 360 away. Company's coming next weekend, and I have to go back to work after my five weeks off. Blogging will become less frequent, I'm sorry to say.

What The Sewing Lawyer thinks while working on a machine knitting project

"I should use the special features of that SK360 that I've never used in an actual project, like a stitch pattern that requires a punch card."

Gets manual out. Considers drive lace. [Drive lace is a kind of lace that forms open areas where stitches that are selected by a punchcard are allowed to run. Susan Guagliumi talks about it here.]

Compares cards. Wonders which ones would work with drive lace. Picks a card.

Studies manual in detail (see this video). There are So.Many.Steps!

Gets out cone of icky synthetic to try it. Plods through steps.

"The P Carriage is FUN!"

Picks another card to try. Forgets to set card to advance. Notices that the first row (on which the card is stuck) selects the same stitches to knit and drop over and over, and that this allows vertical lacey stripes to form.











"OOH PRETTY!"

Decides to knit a top with all-over vertical lacey stripes. Knits swatch, measures swatch.

Knits another swatch to try out ribbing.

Knits another swatch to try out a different kind of ribbing.

"OOH PRETTY!"

Looks on Ravelry for a pattern that is vaguely similar to what she has in mind.

Bingo!: Yamamichi-mon.

Bonus! It's a free pattern and it has a schematic drawing with measurements.

Prints out gauge specific graph paper and charts shape of Yamamichi-mon top.

Counts itty-bitty boxes to determine numbers of stitches and rows.

Agonizes over how to cast on for the chosen ribbing.

First step in casting on - the zig-zag row

Congratulates self for figuring it out.

Knits ribbing. So far, so good!

Starts knitting pattern. Edge stitches are not knitting. Tries to fix stitches. Catches yarn on gate pegs.

"Gate pegs are evil!"

Figures out how to get edge stitches to knit. [Sometimes, you have to pull the needles out to D position. Generally, you need more weights.]

Knits back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Repeat over 200 rows, more or less.

Time for short rows!

Consults manual.

"Where are the Russell levers?" (And why are they called that, anyway?)

"Better drop those stitches down while I have the chance."

"The P Carriage is FUN!"

Figures out how to knit short rows while simultaneously keeping pattern going.

Congratulates self.

Figures out how to continue knitting on all stitches, and how to convert the pattern back to ribbing. Knits ribbing.

Remembers to increase stitch size on very last row to enable stretch bind off. Congratulates self.

Remembers to remove all weights before casting off. Congratulates self.

Sore back from hunching over machine while casting off 185 tiny stitches.

"Done!!" Congratulates self.

Wet block overnight.

The next morning: "OOH PRETTY!"

Rinse and repeat.

Realizes at some point (irony) that this particular form of drive lace doesn't require a punchcard at all.

Soon there will be a new top!

Woo-hoo, even more knitting!!

«--- Mine

                                     Ankestrick's --»

I felt like I was neglecting one of my knitting machines. It's a standard gauge (4.5mm) Japanese machine (Singer 360 if you are interested).

So I decided to use it to knit a top out of some laceweight linen that I bought last year. There was a new and delicious looking pattern on Ravelry (Summer by Ankestrick, photo from the pattern above). So what if it's (a) handknit, (b) knitted top down and seamless and (c) made in DK weight yarn? How hard can it be to figure out the shape and convert it?

That weird drawing at left? That's my mapping of the beginning part of the pattern instructions. The back neck and shoulders are shaped with short rows, and every time you pass one of the four markers you increase at least one stitch. These increases eventually make what look like seams forming saddle shoulders that are very dropped.

Following my usual process, I sketched the shape of the sweater in two dimensions on gauge-specific graph paper and knitted the pieces - laid out prior to construction at right.

I think it took me as long to sew the pieces together with my new (to me) linker (Singer DL1000) as it did to knit them in the first place. The longest part of the whole process was attaching the ribbed bands at the neck and arm edges. I had to do quite a number of repairs, which are now invisible even to me. There is a distinct learning curve for all this!

I was pretty interested to see how I would like the fit of the very sloped shoulders when combined with a boxy shape, which is a new style for The Sewing Lawyer.

At left, you can see how the garment silhouette corresponds (or not) to my anatomy - as well as how airy the knitted linen fabric is. The garment structure puts the arm opening low down but the boxiness allows for movement that would otherwise be inhibited by the shoulder slope. The garment will ride up if I raise my arms too high. So this is not an active-wear style. It should be fine as a casual summer top, which is exactly what this is.

Now if only the weather would warm up!

I might be a little bit addicted

My sewing machines are sadly neglected while I've been knitting.

This colourful item is a shawl I made for a friend's birthday. She had been dropping extremely broad hints ever since clapping eyes on my version. It was a quick knit. And you can't go wrong with Kauni rainbow yarn.

And I've been machine knitting too. I made another zipped cardigan, this one for my husband. It's the same as the one I made for my son except for the colour.

This side view shows the ribbed detail rather well.

Again, I'm quite proud of the finishing on the collar.











And I've just started a hand knitting project - a cabled cardigan for myself. The pattern is challenging as it's knitted top down with all shaping built in by increases, and the back panel requires cabling on every single row. I should be absolutely comfortable with cabling without a cable needle by the end of this project. The photo shows the back. No points for finding my mistake.



My final knitting news is that I acquired yet another knitting machine - a standard gauge Singer with ribber and punchcard mechanism, which excites me excessively. I spent some quality time cleaning and oiling it on the weekend, and then I put it through some of its paces.

Fair Isle

The two samples above are knitted with the same card and technique - the crazy mosaic is the knit side when knitted in two colours and the white sample is the purl side in (obviously) one colour only. Both are tuck knitting.



These two samples are also made with the same card but different knitting techniques. To the left is slip knitting and to the right is fair isle.