Palmen Röd or The Red Palm was an original design by Kerstin Olsson in 1967 for Bohus Stickning. She designed a series of garments that she called ‘palms’ : The Blue Palm, The Cocoa Palm, The Date Palm and the Sago Palm. The Red Palm was the last of the series. This design was recreated in 2005 by Solveig Gustafsson and has since been updated by Pernille Silfverberg.

I decided to knit this into a jacket style with the knowledge that I had some of the spare colors available in my stash if needed. Sure enough, I had to borrow color # 327 for which I had leftovers from both The Egg and New Azalea.

I loved the bright pinks in this one but there is a rusty #416, tone as well that put me off a bit but I dutifully followed the chart knowing that both the designer and the yarn dyer have the gift of color.

I lengthened the fronts and then used short rows for waist shaping on both fronts due to sideways knitting and mirrored that shaping with traditional decreases on either side of the back to match.

I knitted this somewhat in pieces: Each front was knitted separately and sideways as per the pattern/design. After fronts were both finished, I then picked up stitches from each shoulder, knitted the neck shaping and then cast on the back stitches to join them and knitted downwards until I did the armhole shaping in reverse engineering of the pattern but using the same numbers including a cast on of stitches under each armhole.

I began by joining the back in progress to each side of the front pieces by picking up a stitch and knitting it together with the live first/last stitch of each back side. This looked beautiful on one side but did not match exactly on the opposite side so I frogged and knitted the back without joining the fronts in progress.

Since I had left live stitches on each front, I actually joined the back and side fronts using a technique very much like a three needle bindoff.

With live front side stitches, I picked up a stitch at the side of the back and knitted it together with the one from the front. Then, with 2 stitches on the live needle, I cast off the extra stitch and continued to “use up” my live stitches this way working my way down the static back sides. This worked beautifully and basically has half of a side seam selvedge since one side was live the the other picked up and both sides look identical from the outside. From the inside, the only discernible difference is that I worked one side from bottom to underarm and the other from underarm to bottom and therefore the cast off stitch is worked in the opposite direction. I am very satisfied with this and I will do this again in the future where applicable.

Once sides were joined, I knitted top down sleeves using German short rows much like I’ve done in the past incorporating first one stitch on each side and then half way down the opening, 2 sts, then finally 3 and 4 sts before knitting the 14 underarm stitches to join the round. Sleeves were then decreased 2 stitches every 6th row until 72 stitches remained and sleeve measured 17”. Then 13 rounds of garter cuff detail to end the sleeves. (The jacket pattern sleeves actually start with 84 stitches which I find to be too wide.)

Next, garter edges at bottom and neck edge to match the front edges including buttonholes top and bottom. Must find buttons next while sweater is blocking. Photos to come.

Some have asked for more information about the sideways waist shaping so here is a bit of explanation.

SHORT ROW SHAPING FOR FRONTS
In a nut shell, when knitting the fronts sideways, I stopped at the point where I wanted the narrow part of my waist to be and placed a marker called “W” at that narrow point of the waist and then I put markers every ten stitches on either side (below and above) of that marker where I intended to do my short row shaping, first on the lower part beneath the waist marker and then on the upper part above the waist marker.

See quick sketch for illustration.

So Row 1 (RS) starting at bottom edge, knit to the first lower marker (#1 in the diagram I will post) and stop, turn making a short row and purl back to the beginning of the row.
Row 2 (RS still) knit to marker #2 (incorporating the short row stitch as you pass it) and turn (making a short row - I use the German method) and purl back to beginning.
Row 3 and 4 are worked just the same but each time knitting closer to the waist marker. When all 4 short rows have been made, knit R5 plain all the way to under arm.

Next, begin short row shaping on the part above the waist marker but do this on the purl side so,
Starting at underarm, R1 (WS) Purl to upper marker #5 and turn, making a short row and knit back to underarm.
R2 (WS) Purl to marker #6 incorporating the short row stitch as you go and turn, making a short row here and knit back to underarm.
R 3 and 4 are worked just the same. When all short row shaping is completed, work one final row plain (on one of the fronts this will be a knit row, on the other, it will be a purl row).

Short rows on the opposite side are done the same with reversal of instructions.

Waist shaping on the back piece was done as with normal decreases and increases on either side of the waist and one inch apart which matched the approximate location of short rows on the fronts.

Final weight of garment before buttons = 282 grams.
Leftover MC = 118 grams.
Very little of other colors remain.