a wee bit behind, with a recipe

Awww, thanks for all the compliments on my silky top-down raglan! It’s seriously easy – I don’t think I’ll be writing up the pattern entirely, but I’ll do a basic recipe and you can always email me for clarification. Oh, and it wasn’t a knitting needle – it was a hair thingy. ; )

In the meanwhile, I am falling behind in many things – schoolwork (any urban foresters, Yimas experts/speakers, or people who know stuff about communication in non-speakers out there?), spinning, the knitting. It’s not that I’m not knitting, but I’m just a bit overwhelmed with how much I need to be doing right now. Overwhelmed to the point of not being able to do *anything*, really. Sigh.

So. Silky v-neck top down sweater. This might only make sense if you’ve done a top-down raglan before, but it’s super easy.

Bulky yarn, gauge of approx. 12 sts/10 cm after blocking. The sweater I made now measures 38″ in the bust after blocking and wearing, with the fronts just touching (not overlapping). This is a bit bigger than I was trying to make, but at least I can always overlap it to make it fit a bit tighter. Oh, and I used 8 mm circs.

Cast on 48 stitches and divide like so:
1 st, pm, 8 sts, pm, 30 sts, pm, 8 sts, pm, 1 st
front-sleeve-back-sleeve-front.

Row 1: increase in the first stitch (I used kfb), sl m, inc, *work to 1 before marker, inc, sl m, inc*, repeat from * to * until you get to the end of the row.

Row 2: purl

Increase for the yoke, increasing in the first and last stitch of each right side row along with before and after each marker until you reach a good size where the back and the two fronts have the same number of stitches. I did 60 sts in the back, 30 in each front. The last five stitches I increased in first and last stitches, I did so in seed stitch.

Place the sleeve sections on waste yarn and continue knitting down the body, with the first and last 5 stitches in seed stitch. For waist shaping, I decreased 2 stitches at each side (below the underarm) every inch three times, worked one inch even, then increased 2 stitches at each side three times. Work even until almost the length you want, then do some seed stitch and bind off.

Place one sleeve’s stitches onto an appropriate needle (I used the 9″ denise cord), pick up two stitches from the underarm, and continue in the round. I decreased two stitches at the beginning and ending of the round six times, then just went straight to the wrist. For the wrist edging, I just did one round purl, one round knit, and bound off purlwise. Do another sleeve.

To neaten up the neckline I did one row of single crochet, and then another row across the back neck to prevent flipping. Weave in ends, block, and you’re golden.