July 11, 2017

Notes for myself:
Cast on 372 stitches with 2.25 needles using a provisional cast on with the “cable section” of another needle serving as my reserve stitch “thread” so that it will be easy to combine the live stitches of the hem with the working stitches.

This was a bit of a pain (possibly due to the number of stitches) since even tho that cable section holding the future live stitches is very flexible, it is stiff enough that the first couple of stockinette rows were challenging.

My math: Size 44 inch at 8 stitches per inch called for 352 stitches. But b/c this is a cardigan, I divided the stitch count into front and back which indicated 176 sts for the back but since the button bands over lap, I had to add an additional button band amount to the total for the front. So the fronts ended up each being 77+21 sts. So my total CO was for 372 stitches with each front having 98 stitches, accommodating a 21 stitch overlap.

My intention of the wider button band is to accommodate the shawl collar and be a bit “beefy”. The reason this 1x1 ribbed band is odd numbered is that I have decided to use a single selvedge stitch at the front edge of each side. I practiced this in one of my swatches and like the appearance since the selvedge stitch looks the same whether looking at it from the public or private side. Therefore, when the collar turns, the edge stitch looks the same rather than like a purl or a knit.

After the CO, I switched to size 2.00mm needles and worked 12 rows of stockinette starting with a knit row. Then, row 13, RS, purl across for turn row.
Next row, WS, purl across and start counting rows again to match facing.

Change to size 2.50mm needle and work 1 selvedge stitch, then 20 stitches of k1p1. Other than button band, working SS across body EXCEPT the two stitches at each side marker.

I decided to do a two stitch twisted stitch to help reinforce the point where a seam would have been had I seamed these pieces. I like the ease of this and the tiny bit of ‘line’ created by this stitch pattern which is done only on the RS of the piece. Each row finishes with last 21 stitches worked as p1k1 and 1 selvedge stitch.

Followed this pattern of edge detail for 12 rows. Then incorporated live stitches to join the hem using a size 2.00 needle for this join so as not to make the stitches enlarged or stressed.

July 12, 2017

Changed to 2.5mm needles. Placed markers for the diagonal, inset pockets which will be 10 stitches in from the side markers and 10 stitches in from each button band. I picked up the inside pocket stitches from the line where I joined the hem, again, using a small needle so as not to stress the stitches. The diagonal outside pockets will be knitted separately from the back and inside pocket stitches, declining one stitch every RS row until the ‘opening“ reaches the desired length for a hand to fit easily…hoping this is actually at the point that is 10 stitches from the button bands. At the same time, I will be knitting in the buttonholes.

Of course the man’s buttonhole is on the left side. I found this cute explanation of why this is on line.

“Did you know that button placement dates back to medieval times? The button of a man’s cloak/cape was placed so that he could unbutton it with his left hand and draw his sword at the same time with his right hand. People who were left-handed were considered “of the devil.” Women’s buttons were placed the opposite direction because of nobility. Noble women often had another woman to dress them; since most were right handed the buttons were placed to allow the dressers to get their ladies dressed quickly.“

I will use Donnie Statzer’s trick of placing a purl stitch on the opposite side in that same row so that sewing on the buttons is quite easy.

July 14, 2017

Finished knitting right side outer pocket and started the left one which requires buttonhole attention. I’m making these buttonholes one stitch wider than the ones I made for the Large Lace Collar Jacket.

Update: Finished both outer pockets. Buttonholes are 3 inches apart. Next will PU inner pocket on both sides and knit a couple of rows before attaching insides to the rest of the side and back knitting as one piece until it reaches the length of the top of the outer pocket. Will then join and continue in one piece.

July 20, 2017

Inner pockets and rest of sides and back finished to 7.5”, same as outer pocket so I knitted the pocket top stitches (33 sts on each side) together and all is now on one needle using one ball of yarn instead of 3! Much more straight knitting up the sides but this will be much easier to do without worrying about the details of pockets. I am pleased with how they turned out and think the added detail will help the overall look and usefulness of the garment.

July 25, 2017

Body is now 13” long and I’m afraid I have a long way to go since I’m hoping to make the sides at least 17-18” long. Starting my 3rd skein of yarn and very, very happy I purchased 5 skeins. Crossing fingers that will be enough!

July 29, 2017

The Dean pattern work is delightfully simple for my purposes. The motifs have either an 8 or a 4 stitch repeat. How lovely is that! My goal for the 176 back stitches was to take away the underarm stitches as well as the diagonal decreases and end up with an 8 stitch repeat.

A four stitch repeat is much easier to come to but with accommodating 8, I could do either 144 or 136 for my final count. I looked at my straight yoke pattern for Green Meadow size 44” pattern and decided I could go for the 136 stitch count and be pretty close.

I divided back from fronts at underarms this way:
After piece measured 17” from bottom of hem, I knitted across right front, put 18 stitches on a holder for underarms (9 stitches for front and 9 for back), knit across back until 9 stitches before left side marker. Put left side and underarm stitches on holder. Turned and purled the back stitches. Next two rows, BO 4 stitches at side edges, then 3, then 2 then 2 again. My stitch count is 136. The Green Meadow straight yoke has 72 rows of patterning and the round yoke Dean has only 67 so I decided to knit the additional plain rows to make up for the difference in length before I start the colorwork. Winding colors now and although I’m not terribly excited to start the flat pattern work, I know I’ll get going on it an enjoy soon.

July 30, 2017

Ripped back all I did yesterday to the point of dividing the fronts from back. Arg. Decided to knit an additional inch of body and then change to the wider upper back stitch count of 144. That extra inch of length and width will be appreciated in a jacket. To accommodate the motif repeat, I will make my armhole decreases like this: hold 8 stitches on either side of side markers, then decrease at each edge 3sts, 2sts, 2sts, and 1st. Then work 6 rows even in MC. I will then have 36 repeats of the 4 sts motif and 18 of the 8 stitch. I was formerly pleased with having a centered 8 stitch motif in the 136 version but I will just have to get over that since Bohus designs, unlike Fair Isle, are not about all the centering and aligning.

July 31, 2017

The blue in the major motif of the Dean is just wonderful! Since I am knitting the patternwork bottom up, the purls are not landing quite as originally intended so I have manipulated some of them to better suit the need to lift certain colors from the plane of the fabric. With all the changes and decreases and notes, I am referencing 4 charts with my mark ups! I realized much too late that I could have actually turned this blue colored lozenge (that is floating in the black ground) upside down and knitted it as it was intended. Hoping my pattenwork yarn is sufficient as there are small amounts of certain colors.

August 1, 2017

Finished the color work on the back section. Decided to do the plain knitting of the upper back in black instead of the gray color. I was only using the gray as an idea since I liked how the Straight Yoked Green Meadow was completed with the red at the shoulder. There are several reasons for not doing this, one being that the gray color was not really represented much at the top of the pattern. Another…I’m thinking of the way the shawl collar is going to work and I like the fact that it would sit against the same black color and not a contrast color.

When I finished the last row of the chart, I knitted 5 more rows (which was in fact 6 rows of MC Black since the last row of the chart was black). With 144 stitches, I divided it into 3 sections of 48 stitches for the back and each shoulder. The shoulder was decreased by 3 sts at each neck edge and then I worked short rows after each 15 stitches of the shoulder stitches. I put the live back and shoulder stitches on holders. Now to start the fronts with pattern work which will be a bit dicier due to the V-neck aspect and the built in shawl collar. I must take good notes!

August 2, 2017

Started left front. Notes here will help me knit the right front with mirrored details.
With 16 stitches at left under arm put on hold, attached yarn on interior of piece instead of front ribbing for smooth transition at front edge. Worked across and back. Then started underarm decreases, 3st, then 2, 2 and 1 at arm edge. On final WS row, moved the ribbing over by 2 stitches to begin the shaping of shawl collar. Final button hole was just below this spot so it landed perfectly. I have placed a marker for the 45 stitches that will become the future shoulder seam, knowing that I will need to spread the shaping of the collar and patternwork out over the remaining 17 stitches.

Motif repeats are not a huge deal due to declining pattern at neck edge will eat away at the pattern over the length of the piece but mostly must match pattern on both fronts.

The V-neck shaping will be done in part by merely moving the ribbing so that as the shawl collar grows, the patternwork decreases. I think this should work fine since the shawl collar will ultimately fold back upon itself this way. Once the piece reaches up toward the shoulder, I will do some short rows at the inner edge of the ribbing to allow for the extra fabric needed there.

August 5, 2017

Finished left front colorwork and only had to rip back once. ;-( I spaced the ribbing creep (moved ribbing over by one stitch) every 4th row. After creep completed, and when I got to within 8 rows of the end of chart, I began the subtle short row shaping on WS of the collar by knitting to 2 stitches to marker and did a German shortrow which means I simply stopped, turned work, brought yarn to front, slipped next left hand stitch to right hand needle, brought yarn up and over needle to the back and worked the next stitch and continued to the end of the row. Following row I merely picked up the “double stitch” and worked as if a single stitch and continued on.

I worked 4 short rows (every other row) before final chart row which was a MC row. Next, will knit 5 more rows of MC and then begin shoulder shaping short rows. At that point, I may join shoulders and continue collar with short row shaping and picking up a back neck stitch along the way. Alternatively, I could continue collar extension ribbing separately and then stitch down to back neck after joining to right front collar extension.

Note: pattern work yarn is holding up nicely…no fears of running out of any color at this point…whew!

August 6, 2017

Left front shoulder short rows completed. Used 3 needle bind off to join back left shoulder with left front. Will continue ribbing on collar extension by picking up stitches at back neck edge while continuing short rows on the collar so that it will lay correctly over the shoulder area. Have put the center back stitches on a spare needle and will pick these stitches up as the collar grows around the back. Will stop at center back and when right front section is at the same point, I’ll kitchener these stitches together.

Left collar extension completed. Placed short rows on every 4th row as I picked up the stitches that were either cast off at back neck as well as the ones I could pick up from the vertical knitting back shoulder short rows. Total of 10 stitches picked up along that edge between shoulder join and the held (live) center back stitches. Each of these picked up stitches were combined with the last stitch of the ribbing so that I was not adding any stitches. Once I came to the held center back stitches, I stopped the short rows and incorporated those live stitches by a work 2 together so that I was joining a horizontal piece to a vertical piece of knitting seamlessly. I am very pleased with how the collar lays on the piece…short rows did the trick beautifully!

I stopped after incorporating the final left back stitch. Collar stitches are held on a spare needle awaiting the right half for kitchener in ribbing. Switched to working the right front to mirror the left. Winding 4th skein of MC.

August 9, 2017

Finished the right front (last of the colorwork is completed with sufficient yarn, whew!) and joined right front and back shoulders with 3 needle bind off. Continuing with short rows as I now am incorporating the back neck with the stitches of the collar. The challenge will be to employ a kitchener join with 1x1 ribbing stitches, something I rarely need to do but will be an important highlight of the garment if done correctly. Off to study this technique again. Then hoping to start sleeves tomorrow. ;-D

August 10, 2017

The Kitchener graft in 1x1 ribbing was easier than I thought. I followed the advise from Katharina Buss’s book, Big Book of Knitting which is one of my very favorite sources for expert details. She instructs to separate the stitches from both sides of the join into knits on one needle and purls on another. This creates four needles of stitches as can be seen in my photo. I then used a regular kitchener graft to join the “under side” of stitches and did the same with the “outside” of stitches. It is not as seamless as a normal graft since as she says, “The stitches of a sewn seam shift over half of a stitch, you cannot sew this seam invisibly nor can the stitches be knit together.” I think the outcome is very good.

I believe the shawl collar lays nicely but I suspect that I may have been over zealous in my attempt to provide enough short rows for the collar to turn. Now on to the sleeves but first I will weave in any stray colors of yarn and do a mini blocking of the colorwork at the armhole so as to get a very nice pick up area ready. I will use short rows to shape the upper sleeve caps before joining all in the round and knitting downwards to the cuff. The two stitches that were twisted at the sides of the body will continue seamlessly down the underside of the sleeves.

August 12, 2017

Sleeves
Started sleeves which are set in but knitted top down using short rows to shape the cap. Started with the left sleeve and will be careful with notes so as to match the right one exactly. Remember, this is tricky since you have to think of your pick up stitches in another dimension.

Instead of thinking that the opening of the sleeve is X number of inches tall and that it should translate into a certain number of stitches per inch, you have to keep in mind that you will be knitting a cap of short rows and the total number of stitches actually will translate into the circumference of the upper sleeve at the underarm juncture before decreases begin.

In other words, the stitches picked up along the vertical line of the armhole edge (as in rows) will actually be turned into the horizontal stitches of the sleeve itself (as in stitches across). Key here is not to have any unintended puffiness in the body or the sleeve so traditional pick up rates of so many per row of knitting (whether diagonal, vertical or horizontal) do not apply here.

Placed markers at key spots so as to match up the exact number of stitches picked up in each interval. Markers placed: center underarm, shoulder seam, at live stitches between lower arm and decreases for arm shaping, at start of pattern work and midway thru pattern work. To insure identical pick up on the other sleeve, I placed markers at same junctures now rather than trusting my memory.

Picked up 122 stitches in total with 61 on each side and marked how many stitches were picked up between each marker. I picked up using size 2.00mm needles so that the initial stitches would not be enlarged. Another way to do this is to use a separate piece of the MC yarn and leave the ends loose until sleeve is set and then tug the ends of that yarn to tension the initial pick up round after the fact. My worry in doing this is always that even when I weave that yarn into the body, it may find its way loose again so I prefer to go down in needle size.

Switched back to 2.5mm needles and knitted one complete round so that when I started short rowing, it would not be working on PU stitches.

Short rows started on the following round: knit ten stitches after shoulder marker, turn, German Short Row, purl back 10 stitches after shoulder marker. Turn, GSR. Continue working one additional stitch after the “double” stitch of the short row each side until 35 stitches are completed on either side of the shoulder. (Note: some knitters say to knit short row cap using a single additional stitch until HALF the stitches have been used which in this case would have been approximately 30. I chose to work a couple extra rows of singles due to the armhole length for this man’s garment.)

Then work 2 stitches after each ‘double stitch’ or ‘gap’ four times on either side. Then work 3 stitches two times on either side and finally work 4 stitches one time on either side. Then work across all the live, held stitches at underarm, remembering to twist the two center stitches. Note to self:, when knitting flat it was easy to remember to twist on RS of work. In the round, I must remember to twist these EOR!

Worked 6 rounds even before beginning sleeve decreases. Decreased every 8th rnd 10x, then every 6th round 19x until 64 stitches remain - 29 decrease rows, 58 stitches taken away. Worked straight for several rows until piece measured 20”. Purl one row, change to 2.0mm needles and then work 11 rnds stockinette. BO on 12th row using 2.5mm needle, sew down.

August 17, 2017

Finished first sleeve and picked up stitches for second sleeve. Will need to wind 5th skein of black lambswool yarn.

August 25, 2017

Finished all the knitting and weaving in. Needs blocking and buttons sewn on. I am very pleased with the outcome and can only hope it is worn in good health for many years by my dear brother, Timothy! I will send it to him soon. More photos to come…perhaps I can get him to model it!
Finished garment weighs exactly 500 grams before buttons. 6 Buttons are the Black Smoke Mother of Pearl, 4 hole, 15mm from Benno’s Buttons.
Leftover MC 53gr.