I’ve been tidying up my closets and drawers. I stumbled across a couple of items that I haven’t worn in a long time. Luckily they still fit well enough, so they’ve been rescued and added to the regular rotation. One was this T-shirt style pullover.

It’s one of the most intricate projects I did, mostly because I designed it myself. I did it back before Russian language sites became notorious for malware dissemination and wholesale piracy/copyright infringement. There were a few knitting sites back then that were clearly hobbyist-generated, with hand drawn charts for texture patterns. Needless to say there are many reasons why I do not recommend visiting any of them now and strongly caution against it, but I do confess that in the early days of the international Internet, I did browse worldwide.

In any case I stumbled across a hand drawn texture pattern thumbnail that led to this diagonal design. It wasn’t as tall a repeat as I present, and the drawing didn’t show a center mirroring, but both that detail and elongation were so obvious to me at the time. So to maximize the fun, I doodled up a pattern. The resulting repeat with its offset verticals was SO large that to this day it remains one of the largest knitting charts I’ve ever drafted.

The yarn I used was a bit unusual. I knit this from Silk City’s Spaghetti – a narrow cotton tape ribbon, with a native gauge that was roughly sport weight (24 stitches to 4 inches/10cm). The result was both crisp and springy, making a negative-ease garment that was quite come-hither and curve-hugging. Any hard twist sport weight cotton, linen or ramie can be used. As dense and tightly twisted as possible for maximum display of the textures.

I knit this project before I began blogging with intent – probably around 1991 or so. I shared an initial write-up in the ancient KnitList email based chat group, and eventually revised it and posted it on an earlier incarnation of String-or-Nothing in 2004. It’s been up and available ever since, but I don’t know of anyone else who has tried to knit it. The short length and close fit however seem spot on with current street fashion so I present it again. If I had a full length mirror I’d post an as-worn, but I am quite a bit older, and a bit bigger these days. The pattern is offered in just one size, and given the stretch would probably fit a US size 14-20 of ample endowment. I knit and wore it as a 16-18, and can still present it credibly if a bit brazenly as size 20. You could probably tinker it down a couple sizes using a slightly thinner yarn and smaller needles.

The name? I named it after the middle name my mom always thought was hers, until a birth certificate was obtained and she found out she’d been saddled with another. Since it was a Russian derived name and my mom has always been my knitting inspiration, it seemed fitting.

You can download the pattern for Raiisa here,
or from the sweaters section of the free Knitting Patterns Page tab available elsewhere on this blog.