STRIP KNITTING LOGIC – TRANSFORMING A SCHEMATIC
My strip knit Sempre pullover continues to grow. A couple of people have asked about how I’m taking the generic pattern for set-in sleeves and transforming it for working in strips. It’s pretty simple. Here’s the basic logic (click on the image to see it larger):
I used Sweater Wizard to produce a simple pattern for a flat knit saddle shoulder V-n`eck pullover. The directions include a schematic, and describe a front and back each worked separately. I divided my total stitch count into 8 equal “slices” for the back and 8 equal slices for the front.
I started with strip #1 at the rightmost side of the back, using waste yarn and a provisional crochet-on cast-on I cast on my designated slice aliquot (plus one for the raised, visible seam ridge), and began working it from bottom to top using my Sempre yarn. I followed my pattern’s directions when I got to the armhole shaping, casting off the specified number of stitches to form the bottom of the armhole, then proceeding with the armhole shaping decreases. Since my strip is slightly narrower than my armhole, I didn’t get to finish my armhole decreases in strip #1. But that was o.k. I wrote down where I was in the decrease progression so I wouldn’t forget, and let the strip end most of the way through those decreases.
After I finished strip #1, I did another little bit of provisional cast-on for strip #2. I worked it at full width until I was at the spot even with the last stitch of strip #1. Then I began working the remaining armhole decreases as directed by the pattern. When they were done, I continued working #2 until I had reached the length specified at which the shoulder shaping was to commence. Just like the armhole shaping in strip #1, I worked it as written, letting strip #2 end when all its stitches were used up, and writing down how many decreases were “left over” and would need to be done in the next strip.
Strip #3 was more of the same – working until even with strip #2, then working the remaining shoulder decreases. Strips #4 and #5 were easy – there was no shaping required on either one.
Strip #6 is the mirror image of strip #3. Knowing how many “left over” decreases I did on strip #3, I knit strip #6 until I got to the same point where I began the strip #3 decreases, then working the same number of decreases but on the reverse (purl) side of my strip, made my mirror image. Strips #7 and #8 were done in the same way – working them even to their counterparts, then performing the decreases on each strip’s reverse.
I could have set aside the piece after strip #8, but I chose to keep going and to eliminate the side seam. The front begins with #9. It and strip #10 are duplicates of #1 and #2 on the back. No problems with either one.
#11 and #12 however present a challenge. I’ve got a V-neck. While it’s easy to center the V on the seam between strips #12 and #13, half of the V opening is wider than one strip. That means that strip #11 will have to bear some of the neckline decreases. But where to start them? I suppose I could have done the math and figured out on exactly which row to begin, and how many decreases to work, but I was lazy. Instead I cheated. I worked #11 until it was the length of the area below the V-neck opening (a dimension marked on my original pattern). I put a safety pin into its edge to mark that point and knit on for about another inch. Then I put #11’s stitches on a spare needle, and using another ball of yarn, began strip #12. I knit along on #12 until I reached my safety pin, then began my V center decreases, which I worked on the reverse. Every few rows when it looked like I’d catch up to strip #11, I hopped back to that strip and worked a couple more rows. Eventually I finished as many of the neckline decreases as the width of strip #12 allowed. It was easy to accomplish the remainder on strip #11 and finish it off, too.
I’ve just finished strips #13 and #14. Both were easier than the #11/#12 pair. I decreased at the neck edge on the public (knit) side of my strip until I ran out of strip width, then made up the difference when I go to the same length point on strip #14. After this it’s a simple matter of finishing off my last two mirror image strips to complete my back/front unit.
My only remaining challenge on the body (besides chugging through to the end) will be to figure out how to make the least bulky visible ridge seam I can at the underarm join between #16 and #1. Right now I’m not sure if I will use an inside out mattress stitch variant to make that seam or if I will try to knit my piece into a tube using a pick up/ssk pair similar to one of the joining methods used when edgings are knit on.
Then it’s on to the saddle shoulder sleeves, where new difficulties in twisted logic await. In the mean time, here’s a blurrier than normal photo documenting my progress:
Better photos will have to wait for me to finish restoring all of my software (a major household hardware upgrade has left me both improved and degraded in capabilities. I’m thankful, but not quite all the way back at steady state yet).
AMBITIOUS FOR A MOTLEY COAT
My Sempre pullover is shaping up quite nicely. This traditionally blurry String or Nothing photo of the growing back really does not do it justice.
I like the haphazard arrangement of stripelets – that some almost align and others are flat mismatches with their neighbors. Working this yarn in strips is very quick. The fabric is quite nice, too – very light yet opaque. I’m on my third ball, and as you can see, am about 80% done with the back. At this rate I should have just enough yarn to finish the main pieces, although I may still need a contrasting yarn for the ribbings.
Working this has also been not as difficult as I feared. I’ve got my Sweater Wizard print out of the directions, including a nice thumbnail schematic. I’m working the strips to the schematic, using the program’s output to guide shaping. If you do this remember that the print out is for shaping a piece that’s knit horizon to horizon, and is symmetrical on both sides. If directions say something like “bind off 5 stitches at the end of the next 4 rows” know that working one strip at at time you’ll need to bind off 5 stitches at the beginning of the next two right side rows on the first strip (counted across the back, from right to left), and 5 stitches at the beginning of the next two WRONG side rows on the final strip. Sounds confusing, but taking it one strip at a time it has been relatively easy to get my tiny brain around the shaping.
I am planning on continuing around, joining the first strip of the front to the final strip of the back, producing a body tube that’s not joined at the shoulders. When I get to the shoulder strips (the saddle part of the saddle shoulders), I’ll work them back and forth as a strip that starts at the neck edge and continues to the cuff, starting out by ping-ponging between the upper edge of the front and back. Once that’s done I’ll work the rest of the arms off the sides of the now-established center strip. But the sleeves are a ways off yet. First I have to do the front and its deep V-neck.
SEMPRE STRIPE SADDLE PULLOVER
Now for something different. I suppose I should be going back and working on a previously started project but what the heck. Yarn is calling to me and it’s cold in my cubicle at the office. I’d like another sweater to add to my work wear collection. Luckily where I work a certain degree of sartorial eccentricity is accepted, so I can wear even my strangest sweaters without attracting approbation.
I picked up a discounted bag of Filatura di Crosa Sempre at Wild & Woolly‘s annual midwinter clearance sale. (My favorite time to shop at my favorite yarn store). 12 balls of a bulky weight self striper with good yardage. It’s a nice, soft and lofty wool, with a touch of nylon in a binding strand. 104 yards for 50g in a bulky is an excellent yield. I’m not petite, so 1248 yards for a pullover for me is going to be an iffy proposition. I’ll probably end up eking it out with coordinated color ribbings at cuff, waist and neck.
What to make from this demonstrative yarn? Swatching shows me that the thing veers between black and white background color segments, with each taking about 96 stitches before changing. That means that if I knit across my chosen diameter, each color stripe would last for about a row plus or minus. Interesting but too busy. And I don’t want pencil stripes around my entire perimeter. Instead I’m thinking of working on the principles I played with on the Modular Baby Blanket. Not in Log Cabin layout, but in narrow vertical strips, so that the colors stack into better defined segments. I also like the Kente Cloth like effect of narrow bands of un-aligned stripes next to each other. A possibility, indeed.
Now, how to squeeze this orange. Set in sleeves consume less yarn than do drop shoulder designs. Saddle shoulders even less. Although raglans are even more yarn-economical, I tend to avoid them for myself because they make me look like a strutting pigeon. While the differences among these styles aren’t huge, they can add up to about 50 yards – roughly half a ball of my chosen yarn. I like the way fitted saddle shoulders look on me, so I’ll go with them. Unfortunately, they present the most complex shaping challenge, complicated by this knit strip idea.
Having the right tools helps. I’ve got Sweater Wizard. I did up a gauge swatch and plugged in my values, fit, garment shape and size, and selected the saddle shoulder, V-neck knit sleeves from top options. It tells me that I’ll need 1196 yards with ribbing. VERY close indeed, I usually like to have a larger margin for error on a self-designed sweater. But I’ll go with it. As insurance, I’ll start on a provisional cast on and go back to add my ribbing later – in Sempre if I have enough left over, in that posited but as-yet-unpurchased coordinating solid if I don’t.
On to the strips. How to do them? I could work flat across the width of the entire piece, using 8 balls across and an Intarsia method to twist yarns around each other where the strips meet. That would work just fine. I’ve done that before on my Typeset Tee. That worked nicely. But I’m interested in introducing a vertical texture element on this project. I’m thinking of making the “seams” between the strips visible. In effect making the flaw of the visible join on the reverse of the Modular Baby Blanket, and making it into a design feature. To do that I’ll work in stockinette, but use the pulled loop method to knit each strip onto its neighbor.
Now for the fun part – with my instructions for how to knit the piece written (with software assistance) for a regular seam to seam working logic, but with a squirrelly knit method, how do I get there from here? Like usual. I’m going to wing it, aided mightily by the schematic, and guided by the pattern’s prose. I’ve got my stitch count set. I’ll mentally divide the schematic into strips and work each one starting with a provisional cast-on. I’ll do the required shaping as I encounter it. For example, if I start with the edge-most strip under the arm at the side seam, I’ll hit the armhole shaping. I’ll work those decreases as I come to them, and as true to the pattern as I can. Then I’ll break off the yarn, do another provisional cast on and work the next adjacent strip. In this quick-knit yarn the results shouldn’t take long to achieve. I’ve even played a bit with the idea a bit last night:
MINT MINI BABY BLANKET DONE – I-CORD EDGING
Taa daah! The finished mini-blanket:
Evie and Danielle ask about how I worked the corners of my I-cord edging. Rather than mitering them I use a little loop of free I-cord to accomplish the turn. It’s super simple. I’m working the I-cord rounds as K3, SSK, pick up one in main body edge. Then I push all the stitches back to the right of my needle, strand tightly across the back and repeat.
When I get to the corner, instead of picking up one in the main body edge, I work that last attachment round as K3, SSK but I don’t pick up one in the main body edge. I follow that round up by about 8 rounds of plain 4-stitch I-cord (K4, slide stitches to right, strand tightly across back, repeat). Once enough plain I-cord has been worked, I start back up with a joining round of K4, pick up one in the main body edge, followed by perpetual K3, SSK pick up one rounds. This makes a nice, thick corner loop – very handy for potholders, hot pads, mitten edges, or kiddie nap blankets, any of which might need to hang from hooks.
It’s obvious that fewer rounds of plain I-cord will make a smaller corner loop, but too few make an extremely tight and awkward corner. I’ve even knit a whole bunch more than I needed, then tied the resulting free “snake” in a simple overhand knot before going on to the rejoin step. This same principle can be used to make buttonhole loops in between I-cord edging and the main body, by deliberately skipping a bunch of attachment points and working a segment of free I-cord, rejoining after the buttonhole’s desired width is achieved. I’ve also used I-cord as a seaming technique, to unite separately knitted front and back panels into a pillow:
I included zippers in these two pattern sampler pillow covers to enable easy washing.
MINT BLANKET EDGE
O.k. Now everyone extend an incriminating finger towards their monitors, and repeat after me… “Ha, ha, ha!” What are you laughing at?
This:
Oops.
I stand by my yardage estimates and my advice to date. However I did neglect one tiny little thing. Checking to make sure that the quantity of yarn I had on hand was in fact correct. I had forgotten that I had already dipped into mint green for one of my fish hats. Had I not done so, I would have had enough of that yarn to finish out my planned triangle edging. But sadly, that was not to be. With about a quarter of the edging left to go, it was painfully clear that was going to come up short. What’s a knitter to do?
Improvise.
I could have done another narrower dagged or notched edging, but I had calculated out the one shown on my initial graph so that no corner mitering would be needed – it would be an even multiple of the blanket’s long sides, with each edge beginning and ending on the single stitch row, and close enough to an even multiple on the short ends so that a one or two stitch fudge would be of no consequence. The proportions and depth of that edging worked well with the piece as a whole. I could have invented something approximately half as deep, on half as many rows and that would have worked out nicely too. But I was afraid that such a shallow dag would just curl and look ragged and haphazard. Instead I’ve opted for something super simple that gives any edge a tailored look: knit on I-cord:
I’m a big fan of knit on I-cord. I used it on the kid’s poncho, and in lieu of other finishes on lots of projects. It gives the edge heft and substance, and helps avoid that “loving hands at home” look. Two rounds of I-cord can help defeat Dreaded Stockinette Curl. Here you see the same mini-blanket shown in the first shot, but with one round of knit on I-cord in place of the triangle edging:
How to do it? Very simple. I grabbed a pair of DPNS one size LARGER than the needles I used to work the body. In my case that means a US #9. Starting with the final loop left over after binding off the cast-off edge and NOT breaking the yarn, I cast on three new stitches using a half hitch cast-on. I now had four stitches on my needle, including the initial loop. I knit back across these four, to end up at the edge of my work. Then I picked up one stitch in the first selvage chain immediately to the left of that initial bind off loop, for a total of five stitches on my needle. That means I’ll be working counterclockwise around the edge of my blanket.
Following standard I-cord process, without flipping the work over, shoved the stitches back up to business end of my left hand needle, stranded tightly across the back and commenced knitting the same four stitches from the “away” edge again, working from there back towards the point of attachment. On this row I knit 3, then did a SSK and picked up one stitch in the next available selvage chain point.
I continued work in this manner on every row with one VERY IMPORTANT EXCEPTION. After every fourth row, I concluded row number 5 by picking up one stitch in the same edge chain as row number 4. Were I not to do this, my blanket would be gathered into an edging that was less elastic and with fewer stitches per inch than are in the body. Think old fashioned dirndl apron, with the full skirt gathered into a tight waist tie. While this would be a very useful effect on another project, it would not be an advantage on our blanket, which we would prefer to lie flat rather than be gathered around the edge like a rectangular mushroom cap. I’ll have more than enough yarn to finish out my last remaining side of I-cord. Problem avoided.
So the dual morals of my story are: 1) Trust but verify. Especially yardage; and 2) Be flexible. If you’re going to knit in the “flying blind” style I describe for this project, always have an fall back plan in reserve, just in case things don’t quite work out perfectly, and always be prepared to laugh at yourself (in my case, with an Internet chorus), rip back and re-knit.
In any case, for those wanting to work the original edging along with an adaptation of the insertion pattern I used, the graph for it is included on the main body graph. Again start with that last loop that remains when the cast off row is completed and don’t break the yarn. Beginning in the corner and working around counter-clockwise work the first row of the edging chart – in this case making a YO then picking up a stitch in the first available selvage chain along the blanket’s side:
Continue with the chart as presented. Each side should begin and end with row 1, if necessary fudge a stitch here or there, either skipping an edge chain or working two rows into the same chain to achieve that result. The best place for fudging is on row 1, so if you are getting close to the end, count out the remaining stitches and make any adjustments between triangles as you close in on the corner rather than waiting to the very end and trying to fix things in the last couple of stitches.
So there you have it. An off-the-cuff simple small basket-sized blanket. Complete with running out of yarn – the worst possible error such a project could entail, and a similarly improvised problem mitigation strategy.
You can stop laughing now. If you’ve got questions on any aspect of this project, please feel free to post them or send them to me. I’ll try to answer all in the next post.
MINT BLANKET TUTORIAL – PATTERN CHOICE AND FINISHED SIZE
In the last post we considered yarn choice and needle choice. Now on to pattern choice and rough dimensions.
The whole point of this small baby blanket (or lap blanket, or pet blanket) project is to try out some new technique or knitting approach in a low-stress project that produces a useful result, and that doesn’t take a ton of time to finish. Because both sides will be visible and the curling inherent in stockinette isn’t desirable, it’s a great place to try out texture patterns, provided there’s a suitable balance between knits and purls – especially in the edge-most two or so inches all the way around. Working a two or three inch border of garter stitch or moss stitch all the way around is a standard approach to fighting curl that results in a pleasing frame around whatever center patterning is chosen. But I’m in the mood to be a bit more adventurous, and to encourage folk to try some lacy knitting and a knit-on border, even if they’ve never done either before, so I’m going to use a lacy knitting pattern with a garter ground. The whole blanket will be in garter stitch, pierced by eyelets, so curling won’t be a problem and the thing will look (mostly) identical on both sides.
On to pattern selection. If we’re going to work the blanket back and forth as one unit, the easiest thing to incorporate is an insertion strip or pattern panel, rather than a large spot motif that needs to be centered north/south. An insertion strip can be begun and worked until the desired length is accomplished. Sometimes there may be a logical endpoint so that the insertion’s larger motifs display in whole units, but for the most part, strips are easy to place with minimal calculation.
There are tons of lacy strip and panel patterns out there. Some are right here on String and wiseNeedle (hit the Patterns link at the right), but there are lots of excellent choices out there in pattern treasury books and on line, written up as stand alone designs and as part of larger patterns to produce other finished objects. Feel free to pick something you like.
I’ve chosen a 33 stitch wide lace insertion panel – yet another design from Duchrow V. II. Here’s a simplified version of the design in modern notation (the original that I’m following is a 64 row repeat, and features two different treatments for the large center diamond area) plus some bobble-like nupps. I worked the original, so you’ll see some differences between my finished item and results from the chart below (caution – it’s a big file):
Now how to take a repeat and stuff it onto a blanket?
Easy. Even without doing a gauge swatch, we can make a rough guesstimate of project width. Remember – our blanket only has to hit a window of “usable size.” That gives us lots of wiggle room. I know that in plain garter stitch with lots of eyelets, I’m likely to get about 4 stitches per inch at the absolute most in a worsted yarn using size 8 needles. I know this because I know that using 7s, I usually hit 5 stitches per inch on the dot. Garter on bigger needles is likely to make a slightly looser fabric, so I estimate 4 spi just for the garter. But my chosen design has lots of eyelets. Because of the airy looseness that heavy use of eyelets produces, my end product will in all probability be a tad wider than this estimate. Since precision is optional here, I’m going to wing it but base my calculations on the 4 spi figure.
33 stitches at 4 spi works out to about 8.25 stitches across my panel. I could center one panel on my blanket, but I think that two panels might look nicer. Two repeats will cover 16.5 inches. (Any result over 21 inches before adding an edging would be workable.) Two repeats of my panel would eat 16.5, leaving 4.5 inches to eke out to hit my goal – about 18 stitches at my gauge. If I want to place two panels on a piece that’s roughly 21 inches across (before adding an edging), that means I’ll have to put some of these stitches in a band between the two panels, and some along the left and right sides:
I could put those extra stitches anywhere, on one edge to make an asymmetrical layout, all down the center, or I could distribute them differently, with fewer between the panels and more on the outside edge (or vice versa). I chose to divide them in half, placing half down the center, and splitting the remainder along the right and left edges. When you compose your blanket, you can do whatever you wish. And that includes using more than one texture or lacy pattern to make up your width.
So now we’ve leapt off the pier into the deep water of design and have violated most of knitting’s “must do” rules. We’re starting an original project with only the vaguest notion of yarn quantities, no precise grasp of gauge, and the barest nod to final dimension. But we are serene, none the less.
The next step is casting on and knitting. For this you’ll need yarn, needles, and enough markers to indicate the beginning and end of each section (see diagram above). I find it very useful to mark the first transition point on my right side row with a marker of special color, size or other easily recognizable appearance. It’s very easy to lose track of what side is being worked in garter stitch. Having the quick visual clue of “distinctive marker = beginning right side row” is a big help.
String-Or-Nothing 