The Knitting Fiend

Jim next sweater will be knit in…. stockinette!

Yes, another sweater in stockinette. I had planned to pick a fancier stitch pattern. I thought I’d like to show people who feel uncertain about designing their own sweater how to introduce an “advanced beginner” stitch pattern into a sweater. I wanted to use a simple stitch with a small pattern repeat; so I swatched seed stitch, double seed stitch and moss stitch. Then, I tried to photograph the swatch; unfortunately, the yarn is so dark, I couldn’t get these stitches to show.

Still, just because I couldn’t photograph the swatch didn’t mean the stitches didn’t look nice in real life. But I looked a little harder and realized that textured stitches weren’t what I wanted for this particular yarn.

Since visibility depends on your monitor, I’m not sure you can tell from the photo I posted to the left, but the Aurcania Chunky has slight color variations. The blue ranges from inkie-blue-black to a medium navy. When knit in stockinette, this forms short stripes which lend interest. The transitions will keep the sweater from looking too ordinary, but still be subtle enough to be acceptable to my guy. He, like 90% of midwestern guys, is not stupendously adventurous about his clothes.

It turns out the surface texture distracts the eye from the color variation, and since the yarn is dark, you barely see the texture. The effort involved in the knit-purl stitch patterns I tested is sort of a waste. (Although, likely cables or bolder more advanced stitch patterns would look nice.)

But there is another upside: stockinette knits up faster than knit-purl combinations!

For those wondering, this will be a seamless cardigan knit in the round from the bottom up. I started adding lines to my “husband sweater” generator to add a button band.

I was planning to knit this sweater from the top down. People seem to want to do this, post requests to knitting lists and email me asking for them. I keep telling myself all those people who want top down generators deserve a code. Well, for now, they’ll have to content themselves with the raglan mini-sweater.

I could extend the code for that generator, but, you know what? I’ve knit sweaters both ways. Knitting a mini raglan top down makes sense to me, but I find it easier to knit full sweaters bottom up. I get to handle smaller pieces for a longer time. I get to knit the cuffs without having the whole sweater twisting in your lap. It’s easier to short row the neck and raise it when you’re finishing up instead of right at the beginning when you are dealing with establishing the increases at the raglan lines and front neck.

Most importantly, when beginning knitters advance to their second sweater, they’ll probably want to introduce an easy stitch pattern, maybe cables, moss stitch, or something.

Well, it’s way easier to do the math to place stitch patterns knitting from the bottom up. When you knit from the top down, you need to simultaneously figure out how to short row the neck, increase at the raglan shaping points, shape the front neck and figure out where to place the patterns so they appear where you want them on the final sweater. It’s not easy! (Well not for me anyway!)

But, what’s even worse is, after you do the arithmetic to place the stitch pattern, half the time, when you’ve knit 1/2 way through the yoke and try it on, you decide you wish the neck were tighter or loser. But, to fix that, you’d have to rip every single stitch you’ve knit! Arghhh!

No, I prefer knitting bottom up, starting from the cuff; and as you can see that’s what I’m doing. In the end, I knit and write generators to please myself so, I say,