The Knitting Fiend

Mary Ann Raglan

I set up the tripod and snapped a photo of myself. Taking self photos is tricky. I took a whole bunch. I thought my face looked hideous, the light was glinting off my eyeglasses and. . . So, through the wonders of technology, my little bolero is floating on air!

Anyway, I fiddled with the program to create the pattern for a Mary Ann Raglan. The changes are:

• I reduced the ease because I think when worn this short, it need to be tighter. If you pick your size, this will automatically have less ease than I would recommend for a full length raglan.
• Since I anticipate some women will want to wear this really tight, sort of like a boob holder, I added a smaller woman’s size. The sizes go from 2-22. If you are small and want to wear this tight, pick a smaller size! (Or customize.)
• I got rid of the men’s sizes. If you are a man and you want to wear this, you’ll have to deal with that.
• I got rid of the kid’s sizes. I figure size 2 should cover many teens anyway.

Of course, you can still use your own yarn, needles and gauge. You can create your pattern by clicking: Mary Ann Raglan.

This was my first shot at a top down raglan cardigan, and it worked pretty well. I’ll be knitting Jim a full sized men’s cardigan next. Anyone who has knit a top down raglan knows all the difficult math happens when shaping the neck and increasing for the body. After that, it’s a snap. So, fleshing out the code for the full size top down raglan should be pretty simple.

You’ll see that project next week, because I ordered the yarn. Once again, I’ll be using Sinfonia cotton double stranded.