My Progress

As I continue to enjoy this knitting project I keep putting the work down to watch as the circle grows. I am almost finished with this part, only a few more inches. I am still trying to figure out how much yarn I will actually use, I am working in Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton and I have just started my 6th ball and that should complete this part of the sweater and I might have some left over. I am making the small size but I like to start each new ball on an outside edge so I have some long pieces of yarn left over as I end a ball and I am saving them to use for sewing the parts together. The balls of yarn have 96 yards each so that means I will use about 576 yards for this part. The rectangle uses less stitches but may use about the same amount of yarn because it doesn't have the short rows. I am thinking that the yardage required will be about 1200 for the size small. I am keeping good notes because I think i might knit this again in another yarn after I finish this one.

Classic Rounded Jacket my summer project

I was searching though my patterns trying to find an interesting knitting project to start when a friend showed me a sweater that she had just started. The pattern is free from Zaol.
http://www.zaol.co.kr/default/02/01.php Click on Classic Rounded and then to print the pattern click on the icon on the lower right. It took me a while to figure that out since the comapy is Korean.
Knit in just two pieces, what caught my attention was that one of the pieces was a circle, the other being a rectangle and the joining of these two shapes forms a circular jacket.
When I looked at the diagram and then read the instructions I really could not visualize how this was going to work. I thought that maybe I would be knitting a tube but in fact the knitting does forma a circle as you can see in the picture of my knitting.

The pattern tells you to start with the rectangle but I was just too curious about the circle so i started with that piece and have attached a picture. I am working with Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton. I love the softness of this yarn and it gave me the stitch gauge that I needed. The pattern was written for using a thin wool held double so the yardage shown is more than you need if you work in a single yarn that gives you the correct gauge. The circle is formed by knitting short rows and repeats the pattern every 12 rows.

The cast on method suggested, because of the design of the sweater, is the chain cast on, done with both a knitting needle and a crochet hook. I had never used this cast on but the result is that the edge is the same as a bind off. I had to search the net to see exactly how it is done but here is a link that will help. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhKncnlsVyk

I made several attempts at starting this project and finally decided that I would use Cat Bordhi’s method of short row knitting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFrVqx-iN7k but that I only liked the way it looked if I did the wrap in the second Knit stitch of the k2,p2 rib and then turned. Because of this I made an adjustment in the stitch I do the wraps. I am doing them on 17, 33 and 51 instead of what the pattern suggests. I also quickly figured out that marking the stitches for the wraps by placing a stitch marker and using a pin marker on the first row after the wraps are picked up means I can easily keep track of what I am doing.

This is turning out to be and easy and fun project and simple to carry along on your summer excursions.

Happy knitting
Thea