Category Archives: Knitalongs

WIPs of the Week No.4: Ding and Sari

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WIPs of the Week No.4: Ding and Sari

This week in the Top-Down Knitalong has been more encouraging and rewarding and heartwarming than I could ever have imagined. I think of knitting your first improvised top-down sweater as a life-changing experience — and honestly not just as a knitter — but the extent to which that’s been reflected in the #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 feed the past few days leaves me nearly speechless. As does all of the boldness, creativity, determination, heart (as they say in sports), support, advice, and general awesomeness on display. As just a paltry few examples, I offer these notes by @aguillettefashion, @meganann_lynch, @wendlandcd, @kelseyleftwich and @schmidcr. Most charming caption of the week goes to @tinystitchers. And also, these are two of the cutest baby pictures I’ve ever seen: @armenuhik and @abigailrosechapin. So you can imagine the difficulty in choosing one sweater to feature as WIP of the Week, and in fact when it came down to it, I couldn’t choose between the following two:

This week’s bonus prize of 12 skeins of O-Wool Balance goes to Ding Ren, aka @halfcrystalline on Instagram and also halfcrystalline on Ravelry, whose photos are above. Ding is one whose planning and experimenting and enthusiasm and determination and openness has been, I think, encouraging to everyone watching. You’ll find loads of great WIP shots in her IG feed. The particularly nice moment this week, in keeping with the whole of her approach, was when she knitted her split hem, sought feedback, ripped and redid it for a more successful effect — and I’m eager to see it blocked. I’ve loved several of her remarks along the way, including “Live sts used to scare me but now they are exciting when it means the sweater can be exactly the way I want it to be” on this photo, and the number of new techniques she’s tried in the course of this WIP. Not to mention this great post about her yarn selection. Basically, her whole act of documenting this sweater has been epic. Congrats on your fabulous project, Ding, and on winning the generous prize from O-Wool. Please email me at contact@fringesupplyco.com with your color selection and mailing address! And thank you, O-Wool!

WIPs of the Week No.4: Ding and Sari

The second WIP I’m featuring this week is by Sari N, aka @sari_n_ on Instagram and sarijaotto on Ravelry — and it happens to be another of the many gorgeous ivory sweaters going on. It’s been fun to watch this amazing cable sweater develop since she first cast on — she’s posted copious great photos at every step along the way. But I especially loved her comment on this photo, ending with: “You can learn anything you want if you commit to it.” So Sari, please email me and I have a $75 Fringe Supply Co. gift certificate for you.

Definitely go look through all of the photos and discussion on both of those sweaters if you haven’t seen it all. Such good stuff. And next week’s bonus prize will be 10 skeins of Woolfolk Far, truly stunning merino (and a brand-new stunning pattern collection, by the way). So keep up all of the good work — keep those pics and stories coming with the #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 hashtag, and link your Ravelry project to the Improv pattern page if you’re using my tutorial.

One side note I want to make about top-down, in response to this post of Sari’s about where to begin the waist ribbing. (Take a second and go read that caption.) Most published patterns are written bottom-up — it is way easier to write a graded pattern that way. What it means is the designer (hopefully) has thought about the right hem treatment for the yarn and design, and how that feeds into the stitch pattern, which progresses upwards from there. However, when it comes to separating fronts and backs, beginning armhole shaping or neck shaping, it just happens wherever you happen to be in the stitch pattern at the moment you reach whatever the prescribed length is. So there’s a chance your cable and your neckline might not intersect in the absolute perfect way, or whatever. With top-down, it can take a little more planning to get optimal placement of your stitch pattern around your neckline, but you get to do that by starting there, whereas the less obvious intersection of stitch pattern and hem is the one that’s left partly to the chance of where you are when you reach your desired length. So I find this to be one of the big benefits of creating your own pattern from the top.

SEPARATELY, first let me say thank you for the response to the new Woollelujah! tote. I’m loving the pics of this bag that are starting to appear under #fringesupplyco and #woollelujah and would love to see yours. Please tag them!

Second, this should be an Elsewhere week, but I have spent every would-be web-scouring moment glued to the knitalong instead, so I have no idea what’s going on anywhere else! Except that several very kind people have alerted me to the fact that the Icelandic movie Rams (previously noted here) is now available on Netflix and Amazon. And I will definitely be watching this weekend. Will you?

Have a lovely one, everybody — thanks for being amazing!

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: How to knit inset pockets (top-down)

How to knit inset pockets (top-down)

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How to knit inset pockets (top-down)

Last February I did a tutorial about how to knit inset pockets on a bottom-up garment, and today I want to talk about how to flip that around and knit inset pockets in a top-down sweater, for those who might be doing an Improv sweater for the Top-Down Knitalong and want to add pockets to their design — or just want to add pockets to a pattern you’re knitting from, or whatever the case may be. (I apologize for doing this with yet another black sweater — it’s just the pocket-in-progress I had available.) Basically, the premise is the same: You’ve got the fabric of your sweater body, and you need to create a slit in it from which the pocket lining will extend. When you’re knitting upward from the hem of the garment, you bind off stitches at what will become the top edge of the pocket front, then join the lining (which you’ve knitted separately) to the next row and carry on upwards (loads of pics in the previous tutorial on this). From the top down, it’s the reverse: You need live stitches set aside from which you’ll knit the pocket lining, and new spanning that divide for continuing on with the sweater body.

As with pretty much everything in knitting, there are various ways you could accomplish this. The two most obvious are:

A) Work it like an afterthought heel or thumb, where you knit your desired number of pocket stitches onto waste yarn, slip them back to the left needle and knit into them again with your working yarn. In that case, the slit is held closed by the waste yarn while you finish your sweater. When you’re ready, you’d return the upper row of stitches to your needle and knit the pocket lining downward; then return the lower row of stitches to your needle and either bind them off or knit upward for a few rows to create the pocket edging. Or—

B) What I’ve done and photographed here is I set aside the pocket stitches on waste yarn and cast on the same number of stitches for continuing on with the body. When the body was complete, I put the live stitches back on a needle and knitted downward for the pocket lining. (I find it useful to use a smaller needle when picking up live stitches like this — just make sure you knit into them with the correct size needle!) Then I picked up stitches along the cast-on edge and knitted upwards for my pocket edging — this time deliberately using smaller needles for a denser fabric at that edge.

I chose the latter method because I would rather have a bound-off edge than a cast-on edge for the finished edge of my pocket — easier to make it a nice clean edge — but I wanted cast-on stitches rather than live stitches to work from for that edging because I don’t like a droopy pocket. I felt like picking up stitches along a cast-on edge would give it some useful firmness there.

However you want to go about it, the basics steps are to figure out how many stitches wide and how many rows tall you want your pocket to be, and where exactly you want them to fall within your sweater body — i.e., work out your placement. I like the bottom edge of my pocket to be stitched down right along the row where I switch to my waist ribbing. I wanted this pocket about 2.5″ deep, so at my row gauge I decided on 16 rows of pocket depth — which means I started my pocket 16 rows from where I planned to start my waist ribbing. When I put the live stitches for the pocket lining back on my needle, I put a marker in that row so I’d know for sure which row to count from, and I knitted 16 rows and bound off, then tucked it in through the slit so it’s sitting behind the main fabric before proceeding with the edging. Make sense?

Again, however you go about creating your pocket, the last step (after it’s blocked) is to whipstitch the pocket lining to the backside of the sweater (see Cocoknits’ great tutorial on this) and mattress stitch along the sides of the pocket edging if you’ve done that.

I’d love to show you a finished photo of this pocket, but with it all seamed together the camera just sees a solid mass of black fabric. I’ll try to get a pic once the buttonband is done and I can shoot it vertically. But it just looks like an inset pocket!

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: WIP of the Week No.3

Woollelujah! + WIP of the Week No.3

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Woollelujah! the new Fringe Supply Co. tote is here

We’ve got a lot to talk about today, so I’ll keep this part brief! Before I reveal the third WIP of the Week, I have to tell you about this new tote because, well, I can’t wait another second. It’s my favorite tote so far, and since the day the word first popped into my head (and proved to be, shockingly, 100% unknown to Google) it’s been killing me to keep it a secret. So here it is: the Woollelujah! tote, in all its glory.* This one’s big and exuberant in every way — and it’s also available in a choice of two ink colors! For more about it, and lots of pics in its black and blue guises, pop over to Fringe Supply Co. It’s also in yarn stores around the globe today, so check with your local!

Also this week, we got in Jared Flood’s exceptionally gorgeous and useful new book, Woolens — full of timeless accessories you’ll be knitting for years — and the new issue of Taproot, the theme of which is Wander. So take a second to check all of that out, and then come right back for WIP of the Week—

WIP of the Week No.3: Jess Daniels

Ok, so about WIP of the Week: You guys are making this a truly impossible task. Truly. Everyone is being completely amazing and I wish I could give every single Top-Down Knitalong participant a bonus prize. (Or at least a big kiss!) But that said, this week I’ve chosen to spotlight the WIP of Jess Daniels, who is @jess_b_daniels on IG and jessbdaniels on Ravelry. Jess had knitted a sweater last year for her beloved Jenn, which “just didn’t work out.” We all know the perils of knitting for our loved one, the fear of disappointing them and of a handknit sweater going unworn. Jess decided the improv knitalong was a perfect chance for a do-over. She’s frogging the failed sweater and reusing the yarn, and this time she’s not just knitting Jenn a sweater, she crafting one from her own imagination and calculations — a simple stockinette pullover with a henley placket. And I can’t wait to see how the placket part goes! So congratulations, Jess, you’ve won 10 skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter Marls in the color of your choosing. Please get in touch with me to collect your prize! (I just realized after I wrote all of this that Jess’s WIP happens to also be Shelter. Hope that’s a good thing!)

Next week’s WIP of the Week prize will be 12 skeins of O-Wool Balance! Another of my personal favorite yarns. So keep those photos and stories coming on the #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 feed, link your projects to the Improv pattern page if you’re using my tutorial, and leave links to your blog posts in the comments here so I and everyone can see what you’re up to! And remember: THERE’S NO SCHEDULE. I’m handing out bonus prizes through the end of September, but please knit at your own pace — there is no deadline. Whether you’re still sketching or already binding off, it’s all cool.

But before I close, I just want to give props to a few other (of the many) standouts from this past week:

– @snohomishcarol for finishing this amazing cardigan — maybe she’ll give us speed-knitting lessons!

– @stephrbernhard for all the various lessons she’s both learning from and bringing to her beautifully shaped pullover

– @ajamakesthings for tapping into her heritage along the way

If the three of you will email me at contact@fringesupplyco.com — Carol, Steph and Aja — I have a Woollelujah! tote for each of you.

To everyone else, keep up the amazing work, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week!

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: How to improve your knitting and FO photos

*If there are any Best Made fans out there, you may recognize this as a design nod to one of my all-time favorite totes, which had sadly gone out of print but which they re-released last week! 

WIP of the Week No.2 // and Elsewhere

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WIP of the Week // and Elsewhere

Before I announce this week’s WIP of the Week, I want to say something about prizes, because I think people have a tendency to put too much stock in them. Prizes are lovely, but PRIZES ARE NOT THE POINT. As I’ve said before, I feel like when you participate in a knitalong, the prize is your sweater! And never more so than this Top-Down Knitalong, where it’s a sweater you cooked up completely on your own — and for many of you participating, it’s also the first time you’ve done so. What you get out of the knitalong is a sweater, plus a lot of learning and experience and maybe even some new friendships. Priceless rewards. If you happen to be one of a few people who wins a prize along the way, that’s just icing on the cake, right? It’s the cake that really matters.

With that said, this week’s WIP of the Week is by Beth, who is @bethtais on Instagram and also beththais on Ravelry. I wrote an essay recently for an upcoming book about how we, as knitters and sewers, have the power to make treasures, and not just clothes. This sweater of Beth’s is such a beautiful example of that, so it really stood out to me in that regard. She’s knitting a little striped cardigan for her daughter, and really thinking of it as a part of an outfit and larger wardrobe of treasures.  The yarn is the last in her stash of a much-loved small-batch yarn, Flock, left over from knitting she’s done for herself. And likewise, the dress is sewn from fabric she dyed and made herself a dress out of, before using the rest for her daughter. It’s the sweetest little outfit (reminds me of Kathryn Davey) and I hope it gets worn and loved and saved and passed on to the next generation. And I just adore that touch of blue in the stripe sequence. So beautifully done in every regard.

So congratulations, Beth, you’ve won 7 skeins of Purl Soho’s Flax Down, in the color of your choosing! Please email me at contact@fringesupplyco.com to collect your prize! And big thanks again to my friends at Purl Soho for providing this week’s luscious prize. Next week’s prize is 10 skeins of the new Brooklyn Tweed Shelter Marls, so keep those photos and stories coming! Link your Ravelry project to the Improv pattern page if you’re using my tutorial (131 projects and counting!), and use the hashtag #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 wherever you post. I especially love it when you leave links in the comments to your blog posts, so everyone can see those.

Whether you’re participating or not, I really recommend clicking through the posts on Instagram — such an amazing range of knitters and sweaters and trials and errors and victories. It’s incredible. When you’re done reading through that, there’s Elsewhere:

– Have you seen Brandi’s YouTube channel? Gorgeous

– Have you heard about Ann’s Washalong idea? Genius

– Tom’s sweater is a work of art

– And Dianna’s queue is jaw-droppingly beautiful

– Great tutorial on seaming perpendicular knits

– LOVING this year’s Refashioners challenge

– Darling

– I might need to make this tank

– And this hat

Happy weekend, lovely people! See you back here next week—

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: How to knit a compound raglan // PREVIOUSLY: Elsewhere

WIP of the Week No.1: Ashley (aka @callistoknits)

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WIP of the Week No.1: Ashley General

You all know what a nerd I am about the planning parts of sweater knitting, so you can imagine my joy at this phase of the Top-Down Knitalong — seeing everyone sketching and swatching and calculating. Oh, my heart! There are already over 400 posts on the #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 feed at Instagram, and so far 82 projects linked to the Improv pattern page at Ravelry, most of them “In progress August 2016.”* Some people are still swatching, while others have already separated their body and sleeves, and I keep seeing people saying they’re “behind schedule” — but there is no schedule! Dive in whenever you want; finish whenever you finish. The only part that’s on a schedule is the weekly prizes, which run through the end of September — and today I get to hand out the first one!

Among the many amazing plans, I’ve been super impressed with Ashley, who is @callistoknits on Instagram and ashleygeneral on Ravelry, and whose sweater I’ve chosen as our first WIP of the Week. Ashley is making a boatneck pullover with a pretty little lace pattern around the yoke, in charcoal grey Lettlopi. She posted her first swatch and sketch a couple of weeks ago and has been savoring the process — trying different needle sizes for her lace motif, doing the math to fit her measurements and her stitch pattern, casting on and trying on. It’s been extremely fun to watch, and I’m eager to see how it all turns out! Definitely go check out her feed and her Ravelry projects, and don’t miss her adorable Pineapple Socks pattern while you’re there!

So congratulations, Ashley — you’ve won 12 skeins of Shibui Pebble in the color of your choosing! Please email me at contact@fringesupplyco.com to collect your prize! And thank you SO MUCH to my friends at Shibui Knits for providing this week’s incredible prize.

Next week’s WIP will win 7 luscious skeins of Purl Soho Flax Down, so keep those projects coming! Photo quality counts, of course (in focus and natural light, preferably!) but so does a good sweater plan and a good story, so tell us about your sweater on Instagram or Ravelry, or if you’ve blogged or posted elsewhere, leave a comment on the blog during the week so I can see! And tag it #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 wherever you share.

Have an amazing weekend, everyone — more on the knitalong (and NOT) next week!

*If you’ve knitted a sweater from my tutorial in the past, please take a second to link it to the Improv page so I can see them all!

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: How to incorporate a stitch pattern in a top-down sweater

Top-Down Knitalong: Meet the Panel!

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Top-Down Knitalong: Meet the Panel!

Ok, so which fabulous knitters have I selected for this year’s Fringe and Friends Knitalong panel? Well, for starters I’ve kept the panel smaller this year — just me and three Friends — to make sure I have time for all of you and whatever help you might need. (Although I’m also counting on you to help each other!) And hopefully the smaller group will also mean no cliffhangers this year. ;)

We’ve had a great time already behind the scenes plotting out who would be knitting what, and I’m thrilled to finally share it with you all. All three of these ladies are known to be very talented knitters, but none are industry insiders, per se, and — most important — nobody has improvised a top-down sweater before! I’m the only panelist who’s ever done this, so you’re watching people do it for the first time right along with you. Full reveal below—

Special thanks to my friends at Shibui, YOTH, Purl Soho and O-Wool for providing the yarn for our sweaters, as well as four of the weekly prizes coming up during this knitalong — an additional sweater’s worth each! The three remaining sweater-quantity prizes are coming from Brooklyn Tweed, Woolfolk and Kelbourne Woolens, bless their soft and woolly hearts. (For more on the prize situation, see the kickoff notes.)

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KAREN TEMPLER of this here blog (Instagram: @karentempler)

Sweater plan: I should note that I already have two top-down sweaters on the needles that I would really like to finish — the purple tutorial sweater and my black cardigan — in addition to casting on this new one. Both those will be wildly useful sweaters, but they’re both pretty dull knitting. For the new one, after debating a thousand different ideas (and wanting all of them in black!), I decided I really wanted a thin, supple, light-colored sweater with some sort of subtle allover cable or other stitch pattern. (Inspired largely by this and this.) I went to pull a sweater out of my closet to evaluate its cables and my hand landed instead on my all-time favorite cardigan — a 10-year-old camel-colored J.Crew number that’s starting to look its age — which is just very basic cables between columns of knit stitches. I pulled it on backwards to see how it would look as a pullover and knew immediately that’s what I wanted to do.

Sizing: I’m going to base it on the dimensions of the same cardigan I’m borrowing the stitch pattern from.

Yarn: I’ve been wanting to knit with Pebble ever since it came out (or since Shibui sent me some before it was released, actually) and haven’t found the exact right project. I’m using the ivory color (which has really nice depth and variation to it due to the different fibers) and holding it double for this. I love it because even held double and knitted on US6s, it still has the feel of a much thinner sweater than the many worsted-weights in my closet, without my having to knit a sport- or fingering-weight sweater! Thanks hugely to Shibui for providing my yarn for this one, along with this week’s WIP of the Week prize!

Swatch: I’m still fascinated at how different my Amanda swatch was when knitting with versus without a cable needle. For this one, I swatched a little ways flat and the rest “in the round” to make sure I wouldn’t have a major discrepancy in gauge when switching back and forth in my sweater, and I’m reassured that all is well in that regard. My blocked gauge is 6.5 sts and 8.75 rows per inch. (26/35)

Seams/seamless: I will be adding a seam everywhere a seam should be — so a basting stitch in the center of each raglan, sleeves knitted flat, and a basting stitch again at each side seam.

Hesitations/trepidations: Unfortunately I don’t have any, which is not how I like to knit! I’d always rather be trying something new, taking chances. I’m SUPER intrigued by Cocoknits’ English-tailored, set-in, top-down sleeves method and might have to try it, since I can knit top-down the old-fashioned way in my sleep. But it depends on whether I have time to actually read her tutorial. So we’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ve mapped out the sweater for raglans.

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Top-Down Knitalong: Meet the Panel!

JEN BEEMAN of Grainline Studio (Instagram: @jen_beeman)

Sweater plan: I’ll be knitting a fisherman’s rib pullover for my husband, Jon. Ever since I mentioned a few months ago that every sweater I knit didn’t have to be for myself (crazy, I know) he’s been asking me for this sweater. When Karen approached me about the knitalong I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make his sweater a reality.

I spent a little time gathering images of traditional fisherman’s rib sweaters before Jon and I started talking about the details of the sweater. We had a bit of back and forth deciding on what the details the sweater should have — fisherman’s rib was a given, as was the fact that it was top-down. Luckily for me, Jon is quick with decisions, so after about 15 minutes of looking at the photos I’d gathered we settled on raglan-style sleeves, a crewneck, and 1×1 ribbing at the hem, cuffs and neck edge.

Sizing: Funnily I haven’t even asked Jon about how he wants the sweater to fit. I do know how he likes his clothes though, so I’m going to run with my intuition on this one. I took some basic measurements to work off of, so rather than comparing to another garment I’ll likely work off those. I’ll have to add in some wearing ease as Jon isn’t into skin tight sweaters but since I’m a pattern maker by trade I don’t predict getting the ease right will be that difficult.

Yarn: I’ll be using O-Wool Balance in Talc. I chose this yarn for a few reasons: first is the fiber content. Balance is a 50/50 wool and cotton blend which means Jon won’t overheat wearing this sweater. I don’t think it’s possible for him to wear a 100% wool garment without being very uncomfortable. Second, the care instructions of Balance are perfect for him as the yarn is machine washable. I don’t predict him hand-washing a sweater, so this was a must! Last, I’ve wanted to knit with Balance for a while now. In all honesty, I actually didn’t give him another choice — with good reason though, as you can see above! Luckily he trusts my fiber decisions wholeheartedly, and he did pick the color. (Editor’s note: Thanks again to O-Wool for providing Jen’s yarn!)

Swatch: I cast on 31 sts for my swatch using US7 needles and love the finished look. It’s also gotten the seal of approval from Jon. My gauge is 16 sts x 40 rows = 4 x 4″.

Hesitations/trepidations: My biggest trepidation is actually just the scale of this sweater. I’m used to knitting for myself, which usually entails knitting the second smallest size for a 5’6″ person. Jon comes from German/Norwegian stock, which means he’s tall with very broad shoulders, so I feel like I’ll be knitting the equivalent of two sweaters with this one. I’m definitely grateful right now that he’s the smallest one in his family!

Besides that, I’ve never knitted a top down sweater before and only one sweater in the round — an Icelandic bottom-up sweater. I’m typically more comfortable making sweaters in pieces and then seaming, since it most closely resembles the type of garment construction I’m used to and that I deal with on a daily basis. I’m excited to try something new though!

Seams/seamless: I will definitely include either basting stitches or splitting the garment after the yoke to knit those sections flat. I firmly believe that this sweater is going to need some sort of added structure based on the way Jon wears his clothes (aka to a very quick death). I hate knitting sleeves in the round so those will be flat for sure. Other than that, we’ll just see what happens as I’m knitting!

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Top-Down Knitalong: Meet the Panel!

JESS SCHREIBSTEIN Fringe Association columnist (Instagram: @thekitchenwitch)

Sweater plan: I’m knitting an oversized, ribbed, armygreen raglan turtleneck. It will actually probably be more like a wide mock neck, although I’m not sure yet how wide or how high it will be. I foresee a lot of trial and error in my future to get it just right! Since the sweater is for me, I wanted to add a piece to my wardrobe that will be a versatile, basic staple. I’ve never knitted a turtleneck before and don’t own too many of them, so think this is the perfect opportunity to change that. I can already envision wearing it with black jeans and boots, over a silk dress, or with a black leather pencil skirt (not that I own one – yet). Plus, this is my first go at making a top-down sweater without a pattern, so I wanted to keep my approach simple, allowing me some wiggle room for mistakes and a chance to focus on the construction details.

Sizing: I have a cream, set-in-sleeve, mock neck sweater that I love, which I picked up at Gap a few years ago. I think I wear this thing almost every week during the winter. It’s sufficiently oversized without being huge. I also recently finished knitting my Abbott sweater, an oversized V-neck tunic, which coincidently has the same bust measurement and length of my beloved Gap sweater. I’m taking that as a sign and loosely basing my own sweater’s dimensions off of this sweater, especially for the bust and neck circumference measurements, while also going a little generous on the armhole depth.

Yarn: I’ve chosen YOTH Yarns’ Father in the Olive colorway, a stunningly perfect army green. It’s worsted weight, which I thought would be a good fit for this classic sweater, and made from 100% domestic Rambouillet wool. Knitting with American-sourced wool yarn has become increasingly important to me over the years, and I’m excited to work with YOTH yarns for the first time. It’s really soft and will feel great around my neck, while still remaining sufficiently “woolly” and a little toothy. It’s a bouncy 3 ply, lending the yarn a round shape and giving the stitches a crisp, clean look. (Editor’s note: Thanks again to YOTH for providing Jess’s yarn!)

Swatch: I knit a few swatches before I landed on a 1×1 rib worked on size US7 needles. The gauge is 24.5 stitches / 29.5 rows = 4 inches in a knit 1 purl 1 rib. Since the rib is identical on both the right and wrong side of the fabric, I didn’t bother knitting the swatch in the round. The fabric is chewy and bouncy, but still has a nice drape to it. I think I might work the neck in a smaller gauge, on size 5 or 6 needles, for added stiffness and structure. I plan for the entire sweater to be knit in this 1×1 rib, including the raglans. I sketched this out a bit, and am envisioning extra-wide raglans worked in rib to add some nice visual interest to the front and back.

Seams/seamless: Definitely seams. I think it would be really easy for an oversized sweater like this to become heavy and baggy after a season of wear without the added structure that seams provide. I plan on knitting the front piece and back piece flat (starting at the underarms) and the sleeves flat, and seaming them. I’ll also see how the raglans hold up to the weight of the sweater, and will probably add in some basting stitches to reinforce them.

Hesitations/trepidations: The trickiest thing for me might be nailing the gauge with the ribbed stitch pattern, as I’ve never knit a ribbed sweater before – I’ve made plenty of ribbed hats, but those account for the elasticity of the ribbing to sit snug on your head. I’ve measured my swatch flat, without stretching out the ribbing, to determine my sweater dimensions, and hope those work out.

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Top-Down Knitalong: Meet the Panel!

BRANDI HARPER of purlBknit (Instagram: @purlBknit)

Sweater plan: I’m making an allover lace top-down cardigan with raglan seams, and this sweater is so mine! I originally planned to make a wide scarf, which I was creating during my 30th-birthday trip to Europe. When I returned home, Karen had just announced this knit along. I ditched those 6 inches of lace scarf so fast and turned it into a turtleneck for a top down sweater. No swatch, no planning, no sketches involved. I was a very naughty knitter!

Sizing: When I knit sweaters for myself, I always design around my bust line. I have never been a member of the itty-bitty committee and always have problems finding clothes that fit me well. Like, a small V-neck pullover is too revealing and a large is too big in the sleeves. With full coverage, I wear a 38DDD. So I simply planned to increase every other row in the body until I had enough stitches to close the cardigan around these babies! At some point, the sleeves were getting too big and the arm depth too long, so I stopped to separate the sleeves from the body. I slipped all the stitches onto a yarn stitch holder for a fitting and low and behold there is no ease in the chest area. I’ll be adding some kind of border at the front to allow 2-3″ of ease. Also, the scarf-turned-turtleneck doesn’t close, so I can solve that problem, too, with some additional width. This border will likely be made up of short rows, so I can control the amount of width I add to the neck, bust and waist. Figuring this stuff out is my favorite part, guys.

Yarn: Just thinking about my yarn makes me feel like I’m lying on a bed of fluffy clouds. I’m using Purl Soho Flax Down, a 43% Baby Alpaca, 42% Merino Wool, 15% Linen blend. The drape is incredible. I’m so excited to wash and block it! I wanted a fiber soft to the touch that can be worked on a needle no smaller than US7. Plus, I’m just a sucker for mauves and light pinks, and this color is right up my alley. (Editor’s note: Thanks again to Purl Soho for providing Brandi’s yarn!)

Swatch: I did not swatch. I haven’t even checked the tension yet. (Yikes!) I’m just following my intuition on this piece, trying it on as I go along. What you see is the scarf I started. Trims and borders are very important to me. I tried 4 different cast-on methods/borders: the tubular cast-on, garter stitch border, rolled stockinette trim and no border at all before the picot cast-on popped into my head. The picot trim was a winner! I added 2 stitches of garter on each side as a selvedge, slipping the 1 stitch on every row to neaten it up.

Hesitations/trepidations: This is the first garment in over 4 years I’ve designed for myself since launching my knitwear brand, purlBknit. Joining this KAL is a passion project, but with my selling season so near I really don’t have too much time for excessive ripping out. I have 4 balls at 217 yards each and I plan to make a sweater with what I have, just to keep it time efficient. Let’s see how that goes. I will likely crop this sweater at the waist and make long fitted sleeves. As I write, this KAL hasn’t officially started and I’m halfway done!

Seams/seamless: I am knitting the body in one piece and the sleeves flat. I LOVE sewing seams. Also, looking forward to picking up stitched on the front for that border I was talking about. It will change the sweater entirely. I don’t know how it will look in the end. I feel as though I am knitting in the wild. What will come next? I have no clue and boy does that feel fantastic.

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We’re all sharing generously on Instagram so follow along with our progress and everyone else’s! I’ll be back tomorrow with a post about how to incorporate a stitch pattern, for those of you wanting to give that a try.

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: Kickoff and PRIZE notes!

Top-Down Knitalong: Kickoff and PRIZE news!

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Top-Down Knitalong: Kickoff and PRIZE notes!

Happy Top-Down Knitalong kickoff day! I have so many important points to make, I’m resorting to a bullet list!

PLEASE READ!

– First things first: Let’s talk about PRIZES! I’m returning to the WIP of the Week format this year, where I’ll feature one sweater in progress from the community on the blog each Friday, and that person will win a jaw-dropping prize, y’all. There are seven Fridays between now and the end of September, and each Friday I’ll be awarding a sweater quantity of yarn from one of my favorite yarn companies. This week’s prize comes from my friends at Shibui and comprises 12 skeins of Pebble in the color of the winner’s choosing. (That’s mine in the photo, hands off!) So make sure you’re posting your progress somewhere publicly online, and either use the #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 hashtag at Instagram (which I’ll be monitoring most closely) or leave a link in the comments below if you’ve posted anywhere else. (For this particular week I’ll be pulling from everything posted so far, not just this week.) Thanks so much to @shibuiknits for this week’s prize!

– The top-down tutorial is now completely updated with new photos and more up-to-date thinking (most importantly how to add basting stitches and/or knit flat along the way, if you like!)

– As of yesterday, there’s a new front-end on it which is a concise outline of the process, in the form of a “pattern” called Improv, where every step is linked to the corresponding section of the tutorial. So you can see the whole process at a glance and dig in deeper wherever you need to.

– This is now also a pattern listing at Ravelry, so if you’re knitting along or have ever knitted a sweater from the tutorial in the past, please link your project to the new Improv pattern page so I can see everything! And it would mean the world to me if you’d Favorite that listing!

– For those about to ask: As long as you are knitting a sweater in one piece, from the neck down, and doing all of your own planning and calculations, you qualify for this knitalong! There are no other rules or sign-up procedures. Just knit and share.

– I’ll be introducing the panel tomorrow! (I know, it’s so hard to wait! We all feel the same.)

– The next day I’ll have a post on how to incorporate a stitch pattern, so if you’re planning to do anything but stockinette, look for that on Wednesday.

– If you’ve never read Hot Tip: Save time at try-on, do it now! And if you missed How to knit the right size sweater last week, give that a minute, too!

– Don’t forget to use the hashtag #fringeandfriendsKAL2016 across social media so everyone can find you. There’s already a lot of great planning and discussion happening on the feed over on IG.

– And we’re overlapping with Shannon’s #sskal16 this year. For more on how to participate in that and this at the same time, see her knitalong page.

I’ll be back tomorrow with our Meet the Panel post for this year — and see you on the hashtag in the meantime!

(Yarn notes: The Pebble was given to me by Shibui. The purple pullover is Lettlopi Color 1413 purchased from Tolt; the black cardigan is Purl Soho Linen Quill given to me by Purl.)

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PREVIOUSLY in Top-Down Knitalong: Improv: A basic pattern for a top-down sweater