Purple reign

As promised, my progress of the top down raglan. Now, I'd classify myself as an intermediate knitter (as said before), and have made jumpers but all have been done in 'piece' knitting. According to Elizabeth Zimmerman, topdown knitting is an exercise in thrift, because it doesn't waste unnecessary yarn, unlike say, piece knitting with the sides hanging down and the 4 stitches or so lost to seaming.

So, since I have only 795 yards of this particular yarn, I think top down knitting is the best way of going about things. I'm working from a rough pattern from cosmicpluto knits. As per her instructions, I direct you to her pattern/blog, but can't distribute her instructions here.

Fair enough.

I'm not really following her pattern to a T however, since this sort of knitting is supposed to be 'unventing' - i.e. - you're doing what you feel like.
With these pictures, I'm just showing you the increases of the sleeves. The stitch markers (that red thing at my armpit) should meet under my arms. Once they do so, it's all good in the hood, as I can focus on the body and probably offload 100 stitches or so to boot.

The neck and borders are done in moss stitch. As much as I like garter stitch, I think it looks better on smaller needles (like 3.00-4.00mm) and holds better on said needles. Garter stitch tends to stretch and flop about on larger needles, I find.

The yarn used is Begere de France magic. Its recommended weight is for 5.5 mm needles, but I'm going a size down (5.00mm) to give the top more structure. I'm using knit picks circular options with a 32" cord. I was attracted to the yarn due to its depth of colour.

You find that in the UK, the cheaper UK yarns tend to be either in natural colours (like biscuit, stone, white, natural) or in candy bright colours. Since I'm not a fan of either, I despaired finding a cheap workhouse yarn in a colour I could live with, why, much less even love.

The Begere de France yarn is helpful, because it comes in darker colours, and is relatively cheap (under £2, so I should be able to make a short sleeved jumper for around £16- and it's what I wish for. Weee!)

If you've been observant, you'll notice that the borders for this incarnation of the top down is moss st, while the first was ribbing. As much as I loved the ribbing, I thought it didn't provide enough contrast with the stocking stitch as it were, and I didn't really want the reverse stocking stitch this time around.

With the colour being so dark, it's the textures that need to work with the yarn, hence the stocking stitch body with the moss stitch edging.
The yarn is 50 superwash wool and fifty percent acyrlic. On first knit, against the shoulders it does feel a bit rough, and should soften up on washing (if the swatch is anything to go by). It does feel substantial on the shoulders, even with its capelet imitation (as it's doing on my shoulders right now). My only grouse with the yarn is the fact that it's not spun tightly at all, so it splits. You can't really crank up the speed as one would like to.

Sadness, all around.


For the next post, I'll tell you about the increases.

Who you're gonna call? Stashbuststers!

Remember the yarn I was bitching about? It's the brown sheep cotton fleece in 'raging purple'. It's more blue in the screen than it is in real life. If it were actually like that in RL, I'd have been pleasantly surprised. It's more of a lavendar in reality than a periwinkle as it is in the photo. The other yarn is an eggplant colour, and this is the purple that I truly love. Not many yarn companies seem to be able to do that deep, light absorbing purple though, pity.
The last time we left our erstwhile heroine, she was all a twitter over the Phildar patterns and wondering what to knit next. Well, things have happened since then. I've sent off the french pattern to be translated (and hope to get it in the next two weeks), and I'm going away for a short holiday and might pick up some yarn. So, erm, as a result of this, I have to stashbust. I do like the blue sky alpaca yarn's cropped cardigan, but I cannot justify buying another pattern right now, so I'm trying to do a copy. A bootleg, so to speak. *cough*
I've never attempted a topdown raglan before. I guess it's because my circular needles (before I got the knitpicks options) were rubbish: very stiff plastic cords, rough surfaces... yeah, Pony circulars are the rubbish. I'm actually using Bergere de France Magic yarn which is 50% yarn and acrylic. The yarn is a lovely colour, like an egg plant, but it's very splitty and you cannot knit by touch alone. The yarn is heavier than aran weight (takes a 5.5mm needle), but I'm using a 5mm needle because I want this cardigan to have a bit of structure.

From what I've seen of this cardi, it seems to be a top down raglan - with no button holes, so I'm going to imitate. The neck and sides seem to be ribbed, and the sleeves are in stocking stitch for the first three inches, then ribbed to the end. The bottom eight inches seem to be in 1x1 ribbing as well.

If I find that I need closures, I'll get a toggle or some hooks.

Due to this being one piece, it's going to be back and forth in stocking stitch for a while to come. That's okay though, after the madness that was Loll, this suits me down to the ground. Also, I want to know what it feels like to knit seamlessly. Will I abandon piece knitting for knitting in the round?

I'll try and detail as much of this process as I can before I go away. I don't think I'll be carrying my knitting with me, because the Med is blistering this time of year.

Update: I'm not really comfortable with the kb&f increases, it looks a bit messy because I don't know what I'm doing. If it looks really bad, I'll rip back, and do an M1 increase. If it's good enough for Elizabeth Zimmerman, right?