Monday, 19 November 2007

When all is not as it seems

Sometimes things seem that they will be perfect... and then they turn out to be not quite so good. As was that perfect pattern for the merino chocolate orange yarn.

As I worked the first sleeve, increasing slowly, I realised that all was not well. The stitch pattern covered 24 rows, but seemed to jump after the first half. Although the knitting looked pretty good, I couldn't get the flow - and had no idea how to bring those new side stitches into the pattern.

I measured the progress I had so far, and realised that if I followed the increase instructions, the finished sleeve would measure 24" from cuff to armhole - even my arms aren't that long!

The pattern gauge was given in stocking stitch, and I had matched it exactly, but the lace cable pattern for the actual design was turning out to be a different beast.

Things had to change. I frogged the 3" of sleeve I had worked, and decided to create my own pattern.

I thought about what I liked from this design, browsed through my stitch dictionaries for a while, and ended up with this:

I'm doing basically the same shape garment, but with a flowing cable design - twisted 2-stitch cables rotating anti-clockwise for the cuffs and collar, leading into wider 6-stitch cables turning clockwise in alternate columns as they climb the garment.

It flows - and I like it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Impressive to come up with your own design - good luck with it!

Anita

PS. I think we live in the same part of the world - I noticed the word 'Cornwall' popped up in a recent post of yours...