I found this yarn at my local yarn shop, The Yarn Lounge, and it was love at first touch. In the store, a knitted sample was provided that demonstrated the lovely drape and loftiness of the yarn. Because of my daily knitting and experimentation that consumes loads of yarn, a lot of my yarn purchases come from the clearance bin. However, this yarn cried out to me and there wasn’t any choice but to bring it home.
Only 8 balls were left on the shelf and I’ve been trying to work out what I can create that will be next to the skin. I already own too many scarves, but 8 balls isn’t enough for a full sized sweater… but maybe enough for a cozy shrug! I don’t like the side to side tube shrugs because of the sagging in the back and my attempt at the top-down set-in sleeves wasn’t fully successful. So, I’m opting for the top-down raglan.
It’s tried and true.
The plan: Knit in one piece starting at the top. Once the sleeves are separated from the body, put the body stitches on a holder and knit up the sleeves. Whatever yarn is left over will be used to lengthen the body and add the collar. This way, long sleeves are ensured before I run out of yarn.
Even though I own a couple of stitch dictionaries, it was a stitch I found on knittingfool.com that caught my attention. It’s called “Bear Claw” and it’s lovely. A little bit of lace with undulating waves. It’s a simple pattern but my makeshift stitch markers are required to keep the thing in check. Without the markers, it all gets muddled as I’m going along and before I know it, I have to rip back several long rows.
After ripping out the start of the top-down set-in sleeve sweater and the failure of my long short row sweater, I wanted a quick and easy project that I’ve done before. The only change I’ve made to the standard raglan, is to take the advice of Maggie in her Sweater Design in Plain English about including a few increases in every 4th row instead of EOR to allow for a longer armhole drop. I’m hoping this change will be an improvement and not lead to ripping out the sweater.
Update- Failure! See next post Best Laid Plans… 😦
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