day 5 of the sweater design and testing

Hi again! Just wanted to update and collect thoughts here.

I had a short brainstorming session with the owner of my LYS (hi Nancy!) and decided a few things:

1. Bought more of the Brown Sheep Nature Spun to use as test material. I really like this feel of this yarn, and will be using this in the final design. She didn't have any of the blue (BS NS "Navy Nite", colorN39) in stock, but like that's an issue? ;-) It'll get there!


2. I'll be writing this design out as a chart and as a row-by-row. It's going to be *long*. I've only reached the decrease on the first sleeve, and it is already a full page plus. It's not an easy pattern!


3. I'm using two different raglan sweater patterns - one from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns and one from an online site called The Knitting Fool. I have found a mathematical error in the decreases on the sleeve directions from the online site, and so I am using both sources to cross-check myself. The website's pattern is in pieces, and the book's pattern is in the round. I seem to love the complicated issues.

The sleeve seems to be progressing well. Here's a two-days-into-this-sample pic. Note! The color of the yarn I'm using for testing is ROYAL PURPLE, not the blue that it looks like in this pic from my phone. I need a better pic. Or a different camera.

That's about 40 rows of pattern, and a cop-out of only an inch of cuff. Actual cuff will be about 2.5-3". I have to say the pattern is showing up like a dream against a moderately dark background! I'm getting excited about it!

Sue made the suggestion that I work all the increasing sts on the left and right sides as stockinette, as a) it reduces bulk on the underside of the sleeve, b) it won't drive me crazy trying to incorporate increases into moss st, c) it'll be a lot easier to seam, and d) who (besides knitters) looks at the underside of a sleeve?

The decreases into the moss and pattern sts, on the other hand, will be visible on the shoulder, and I'll work on those when I get there. I'm designing as I knit, so I'll have a couple more main pattern repeats to ponder the decreases.

I started counting the days from Monday, July 30 as Day Zero for this design. Let's see how long it takes to come to fruition.

Cheers!!