Lauren's Tales

Here’s the thing about knitting and patterns.  When most people knit a sweater, they start with a pattern that someone else made.  They either knit that pattern exactly, or throw in a few variations, or have to make changes to work around the inevitable pattern mistakes.

I can’t read patterns very well.  I tend to get lost in the rows of knits and purls, and it doesn’t help that there is no standard notation for knitting patterns.  When I knit a sweater, I do something that is awfully difficult for most people.  Actually, it’s difficult for me too but less difficult than reading patterns.

I improvise.

There are books with basic patterns and even “sweater calculators” on the web that will tell you how many stitches to cast on, and that’s enough to get started with.  The complications come in when you want to knit a stitch pattern on your sweater.  That’s something that used to confuse me when I was new to knitting–there are two meanings for the word “pattern.”  There is the pattern for the project (sweater, scarf, hat), and decorative stitch patterns that repeat every so often.  It’s possible to knit a perfectly fine sweater with no stitch patterns, but I tend to find it boring.  I suspect that cables and other design elements developed because back when knitting was the only way to get clothes, plenty of knitters found knitting around and around to be boring, too.

Just like any commercial pattern is bound to have a mistake somewhere, a pattern I design myself will always have at least one, and probably more because I can’t perform basic arithmetic well.  It’s easier for me to go ahead and knit it than it is for me to draft it on paper.  That way I’ll find out which parts need more thought, diagramming and debugging.

The sweater has two patterns alternating across.  It looks like more, but some patterns are the same as other patterns, only with more repeats.  I can memorize an 8-row pattern, especially because most of the rows are the same.  But some of the design elements are larger and more complex.  They’re only knit/purl patterns, but 16 rows of knit this and purl that is way too much to memorize.  And for the first part of the sweater I have to knit in the flat, back and forth, so the knits and purls and the direction that I’m knitting will reverse the pattern in two directions every time I get to the end of the row.  Oh, and since I’m knitting this sweater top-down, it’s all upside-down too.  When I pass the armholes I can start knitting in the round, which will make the pattern easier, but I have to get there first.

By the way, there are some sweater design programs out there, but I’m spared the opportunity to find out if they’re worth the high price because none of them work on Macs.  Thus I make do with a spreadsheet to make a grid and a lot of notes in a wordprocessor document.  After finding all the mistakes in the pattern (oops), I had a compact set of instructions.  Now I just have to read them back over and over and not do anything dyslexic when I do.

I have a photo of what it looks like now that I’ve started the back.  The stitch patterns do not show up well, and I’m not a good enough photographer to fix that.

In case you are knitty enough to want the details, I picked up stitches along one of the shoulder straps, then cast on several more stitches, then picked up stitches from the other shoulder strap.  The plan is to establish the pattern and knit for several inches until I’ve reached the point where the armhole would end.

Following this really nifty construction method I found in a book on Aran sweaters, I will then pick up stitches for the front of the sweater, but instead of knitting straight across the front, I will form a V-neck.  Actually, that’s a bit ambitious, and I may end up with more of a U instead.  But I can improvise because I can use the back of the sweater to make a map of how to stitch the patterns with a neck-hole cut out of them.

The next part is to bring the front and back onto my long circular needles, casting on a couple more inches of stitches under where the armhole would be.  Then I get to knit in the round for the rest of the torso.  I like knitting in the round.  It makes the patterns much easier to knit.

The last step is to pick up stitches around the armholes and knit the arms, continuing the pattern from the shoulder strap all the way down.  Somewhere in there I have to decide on a “background” pattern which might just be seed stitch or might be something slightly more complex if I haven’t got tired of the thing yet.

‘Tis the season to have something warm on your lap.  Laptops, cats and very close friends will all work, and I advice giving each a try at least once.

Knitting is another fine option.  Thus I am recording the progress on my latest sweater project.

The overall design is a top-down peasant-sleeve aran sweater with saddle shoulders.  I picked up this design from Aran Sweater Design by Janet Szabo.  I recommend this book highly to people who can’t be bothered with (or can’t understand) other peoples’ patterns.

The sweater is also black, which makes photographing the cables somewhat difficult.  I made use of a handy square of daylight for this picture of one of the two saddles.

The cable design is called XO cable, which I love and hate in equal portions.  It’s simple, looks fabulous, and is subtle enough that I make mistakes with it every time.  However, I’m only using it in the shoulders/arms.  More later.