By Allison Dennis February 2024
Inspiration and where it leads...
Recently I had a bit of a dilemma when I was well into a project that I was not thrilled with. I had spent time thinking about how I could revive it, but in the end the color still didn’t work for me, so I unwound all the pieces I had knit. As this was the MKC Retreat Project, I had to fess up to not finishing to my companions on the great experience. The retreat was amazing and I would encourage anyone to attend if they can.
I wanted to find a way to use the yarn. I thought that if I mixed it with a grey in a fairisle pattern I could tone it down and make it work with what’s in my closet. I started scouring my Pinterest saves and found a pattern “The OA” by Kate Davies that caught my eye. It was a raglan fairisle sweater with an interesting hood, so I bought the pattern.
Once I had the pattern, I started to identify what had caught my eye. Top of the list were the corrugated rib stripes which are not easy to achieve on a machine without a lot of hand manipulation and, even then, the result was a poor substitute IMHO. So I started to experiment with the Nicolson’s retreat yarn and some Jaggerspun 2/18s merino in 2 shades of grey. The 2 ends were a good balance.
At a workshop with Mary Anne Oger last Spring I was introduced to this finish where the inside of a folded rib was on half as many needles as when the face is knit. After bringing all needles into work, I knitted a couple of rows of stocking stitch before knitting the fairisle striped edge to imitate the corrugated rib. Once those stripes were done, the hem was lifted, and you get a nice picot edge fold that lays flat and does not kick out.
While I was pressing it, a length of turquoise yarn stuck to it …. Serendipity. I liked how it energized the pattern, so the next sample included a splash of that color. Now that I had the rib worked out I went to DAK and played around with the kaleidoscope tool in Stitch Designer and developed a tile stitch pattern. The first sample was the turquoise with the retreat yarn, The second was with the grey as primary and the retreat yarn as contrast. The third was the retreat yarn as primary and the greys as contrast. This was the one I chose, so off to the machine to knit the front and the back.
I washed and blocked the pieces and while they were drying I decided that I wanted a different stitch pattern for the sleeves. I didn’t want the turquoise to overwhelm, so I chose this one was the one I chose, so off to the machine to knit the sleeves.
I didn’t want the turquoise to overwhelm, so this was the one I chose. Now, off to the machine to knit the sleeves.
With the sleeves knit I played around with adding turquoise at the raglan seam. My first attempt was a separately knit picot hem sandwiched between the sleeve and the front and back. Deciding this would be a pain to knit all the lengths so I tried an I-cord instead.
800 rows later…
Wait! there’s more….
Hood
I could not work out how to create the hood and connect it to the body. How do I get the neckline back on the machine for the hood? That’s the great thing about hand knitting, you can knit in circles in any direction you want. A logical sequence is needed to do this on a flat bed machine and I was determined to do this all on the machine! So I went back to the pattern on Ravelry and looked at every single picture I could find showing the neck and hood. After 2 days of badgering my friends with my dilemma I found a clue — some stripes, peeking out under the chin of a bearded model. The next morning I woke and realized what I needed to do:
- Working from right back raglan across the back, the left sleeve to the center front, picking up the live stitches and knit the short stripe series. Leave these stitches on a circular needle to hold.
- Working from the center front, pick up live stitches across the right front to the back left raglan. Knit the short stripe series then put these stitches on a stitch holder or another circular needle.
- Count the live stitches from the neckline. Use this number to knit the rectangular hood.
Recently I had a bit of a dilemma when I was well into a project that I was not thrilled with. I had spent time thinking about how I could revive it, but in the end the color still didn’t work for me, so I unwound all the pieces I had knit. As this was the MKC Retreat Project, I had to fess up to not finishing, to my companions on the great experience. The retreat was amazing and I would encourage anyone to attend if they can.
I wanted to find a way to use the yarn. I thought that if I mixed it with a grey in a fairisle pattern I could tone it down and make it work with what’s in my closet. I started scouring my Pinterest saves and found a pattern “The OA” by Kate Davies that caught my eye. It was a raglan fairisle sweater with an interesting hood, so I bought the pattern.
- Cast on using waste yarn and ravel cord. Knit this as deep as you would like. Mine was 120 rows;
- COR put LH needles in hold and 0-5RH needles in hold. Knit the stripe sequence on the RH Needles. Take each side off on waste yarn separately;
- Putting right sides together join the stripe section to the other side of the hood.
- Pick up the stitches around the edge of the hood opening knit the stripe sequence. Transfer every other stitch to its neighbor, put empty needles in non-working position. Knit the other side of the folded hem. Fold to the inside of the hood. Pick up stitches along the cast on edge
before Binding off; - Attach the hood to the neckline starting at the center front. Knit one row to join, then bind off. You may need to do this a bit at a time. Mattress stitch the striped sections and finish the back raglan seam.
It’s been quite an adventure! I am very happy with the outcome and have a wonderful memento of the Lumb Bank Retreat…. Finally!
