Welcome back, dear knitters! We have been having glorious September sunshine these last few weeks, and I am delighted to eke out a good deal more wear from my summer sweaters. Today, I have for you a make that was the result of a yarn overestimation. As you might have gleaned from my last post, I was pleasantly surprised by the experience of knitting with the new-to-me Scheepjes Bamboo Soft, and ordered some more in the ‘opal’ colourway to make a cardigan with a long body (more on that soon!). However, once I got through the yoke of it, I convinced myself that there was no way that I would make it through with just 6 balls, and panic-bought 5 (five) more balls. True, I did need an extra ball, but that meant that I was left with a considerable amount leftover. I love the colour, but again, was convinced that I would not have enough to make another complete garment.
Enter: the stripes.
I rather fancied the idea of a raglan sweater where the stripes showed off the angular shaping at the shoulder line. I used the raglan recipe from the Ann Budd book that I was talking about before (Knitter’s Handy Book of Top Down Sweaters) to get started, and then shaped it the way I wanted after that. You can see that the neckline is already quite high, so I didn’t bother putting on a ribbed collar, opting to finish it instead with a row of single crochet. I worked a decent amount of short rows across the back of the neck…
…which I think drops the first stripe low enough to accentuate the angular effect quite well. As you can see, I kept the body shaping fairly close, and the body length short to about 14″ total, so that I can wear it on milder winter days with high-waisted skirts and dresses.
The neckline seems to sit pleasingly well, though you can see some lumpy-bumpiness due to the stripes. This was partly exacerbated due to the fact that the cream yarn was slightly thicker than the Bamboo Soft, but no harm. I can live with it!
If you’re interested, here are some of the details. I used a 3.75mm needle to get a gauge of 22 stitches to 10cm, but found that it yielded a very floppy fabric. Very! So I ripped it out and went with 24 stitches to 10cm, which got me closer to about a 33″ finished size. I used 2.75 balls of the Scheepjes Bamboo Soft in Opal (about 400m; from Winnie’s) and 1.5 balls of Adriafil Grazioso in White (about 120m; more like a pearlescent cream; from The Knitting Room).
The shorts you see me wearing here are the Dawn Jeans by Megan Nielsen Patterns, made in a purple cotton twill that I think I ordered from stoffe.de (the German original of myfabrics.co.uk). Absolutely super fabric and the pattern is also fantastic – it’s the only trousers pattern that I have made repeatedly.