December 2020 – Deb Gemmell: Top Down, Gauge Free and more

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

I hope you are going to get outside in the snow, knit, read and drink lots of coffee. That’s my plan.

My Any Gauge Raglan Pullover is progressing. There are some interesting things I want to tell you about this sweater. The sleeve separation is special to this pattern and may solve some arm size problems you might have. I also added more bust room on the front of this pullover. Would this be a technique that would be helpful to you?

It’s all going to have to wait until the big day is over because I’ve fallen down the holiday reading rabbit hole. It won’t last.

I hope you enjoy the holiday break. See you on the other side,

Deb

Gauge-Free and Any Gauge patterns by Deb

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Playing with a chart

I’m not going to apologize. I love charts!! I think most knitters need to learn how to read them and use them. Once you can do that, a whole world of modification is open to you. Charts can be played with. Charts can be changed to suit you and your project.

I’m knitting the Any Gauge Raglan Pullover. One of the great things about this top down pattern is that it has a wide Front and Back neck opening. This gives you lots of room to place a pattern. In this one I put a large cable down the front and back (the cable is included as a variation in the pattern).

This time I wanted to work a wider panel of cables down the front and back. This is the pattern I started with. Cable #15 out of the Knitted Cable Sourcebook by Norah Gaughan. An excellent book.

To figure out how I might work multiple strands of cabling, I photocopied the chart to see what I could do with it.

I could do several strands of the same cable.

But then I thought it would be more effective if I off-set them somehow. First I had to find the centre of the round circle of the cable and the centre of the little straight section. Row 10 is the centre row of the 7 rows in the round circle and Row 2 is the centre of the 3 rows between the small crosses.

Now to line the centres up.

Oh my, this is perfect. Look at that. The big cable crosses of the circles on both strands line up. On the right cable Row 6 opening the circle and on the left cable Row 14 closing the circle. This is totally going to work.

Here’s my pattern. I’ll repeat these two cables twice and work the Right cable once more for 5 cable strands. Odd numbers rule in this case. Throw in a couple of purl stitches at the beginning, between each cable and at the end and I have a terrific cable panel.

Charts, are they the coolest or what?!

Stay safe. We’re in the covid Red zone as of today so lots of time to sit at home and knit.

Cheers, Deb

Any Gauge and Gauge-Free patterns by Deb

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Raglan, No Pooling

Here we go. I’ve taken apart a sweater I don’t wear, reconditioned the wool and now I’m going to get started on a new pullover. I hope to avoid colour pooling this time.

I’m working my Any Gauge Raglan Pullover pattern with a gauge of 5 sts = 1″. This wool has a lot of colour variation in every ball so … I’m going to knit it with 5 balls at the same time!!!

Yes, 5 balls, count ’em.

OK, OK, I didn’t start with 5. I started with one. I cast on all the stitches for the raglan neck opening with ball#1, placing markers as I went.

Then I got 3 more balls out and, working the raglan increases according to the pattern, I knit the Back with ball#1, knit the first shoulder with ball#2, knit the Front with ball#3, knit the second shoulder with ball#4. That takes me back to the beginning of the round. Each section of my raglan is knit with a different ball of wool and my first set of increases have been worked.

Here is where the Helix knitting (in this case, changing the yarn in the same place each time) comes into play. With one more ball, ball#5, I knit the Back to the marker, dropped that wool and slipped the marker. With the next ball, the wool that is sitting right there, I knit across the shoulder to the next marker. Dropped that wool and slipped the marker. Knit across the Front using the wool from the next ball that is sitting there. Slipped the marker and again with the wool that is sitting there, knit the second shoulder to the end of the round.

I know this sounds complicated but the wool you need to use is right there at each marker. You drop the wool you are knitting with, slip the marker and pick up the new wool and knit.

There is, of course, a TRICK. Do Not Twist the wool at each marker. When you approach a marker, take the wool strand you were just using and hold it to the right, slip the marker and pick up the new strand of wool from underneath. It’s not twisted.

Why bother with all this?

Two reasons. Because you don’t twist the wool when changing balls, there is no pull at the raglan lines where the markers are. It’s a smooth transition. Reason Two: THE BALLS DO NOT TANGLE.

How is this possible?

When you knit you are moving the yarn from the left needle to the right needle so the circle of knitting is moving clockwise. That twists the wool like this.