/karen/

Yvonne (Part 1)

Sunday, 02 August, 2009

Since Yvonne asked me to knit this for her, I think it's appropriate I name it after her. While we were over at her and Cameron's place the other night, she showed me some of the clothes made by Rodarte—specifically, these stockings. She asked if I'd be able to make a jumper like that. I wasn't sure but after talking out loud, I theorised that it would be possible; I'd just take an existing simple jumper pattern and adapt it for my purposes. After all, that's what making clothes is about: you create the pieces in the shape you need, and then sew them together, right? (Yeah, I really sound like I know what I'm talking about ...)

(I've tried documenting this one a little bit more so you can see the development of the thing).

Scouring Knitty, we found this really simple (but rather ugly, in our opinions!) jumper pattern called Sprout. It's a jumper I would never ever make in real life, but the instructions are quite simple for a jumper pattern: you knit the front and the back pieces exactly the same, you make two sleeves, and then you sew everything together. So I set about adapting it for my purposes, using the Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Mohair I had used for Travelling Vines:

The first thing I did was knit a tension square using the needle size recommended on the pattern (5.5 mm needles, 16 stitches/20 rows = 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches):

It had a nice texture, but it was too dense for what Yvonne wanted:

The lace work wouldn't have ended up like Rodarte. So I doubled (almost) the needle size and knitted another tension square (10 mm needles, 10 stitches/14 rows = 10 x 10 cm or 4 x 4 inches):

The 10 mm needles seemed to work better for the kind of lacework I was contemplating:

So now that I had my tension square and needle size, I estimated the number of stitches I needed to obtain the same size for each piece (48 stitches for the front/back; 23 stitches increasing to 45 stitches for the sleeves).

I cast on using the knitting on method because I wanted more elasticity on the edge (I normally favour the cable cast on method):

I also used the lovely beaded stitch markers Tim and Ros had bought me from my birthday from The Wool Shack:

(Stitch markers are extremely useful because they count off stitches. Here I placed them every stitches along. As I knitted, I knew I was going okay if I maintained the same number of stitches between the markers. For those who always complain that they can't knit because they always stuff it up—they end up with more stitches or less stitches than when they started—I always recommend using stitch markers because it helps you see almost immediately if you've done something wrong.)

I knitted the first row. But from there, I pretty much made it up, inserting random k2tog, ssk, p2tog, p2tbl, k3, sl1 k2tog psso, yarn overs, etc. all through it. I even occasionally used double yarn overs from the Knitty Lace Ribbon scarf pattern for bigger holes. It did mostly have a right side and a wrong side (knits on the right side; purls on the wrong side, as per stocking stitch), but, yes, lots of holes. Unblocked, it looks like this:

Blocked, the pattern (or lack of pattern) will be much clearer.

Here's the completed front (or back; they're the same, remember):

For the armholes, I cast off five stitches on each side. And then for the neckline, I knitted nine stitches, cast off 20 stitches and knitted nine stitches. The nine stitches on either side of the neckline were continued for another three rows before casting off.

I've now completed both front and back, and am working on the sleeves.

Further photos of the sleeves, blocking it and putting it all together to come ...

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