Aka Origami Shoulders or Symmetrical Exploration or Shiny Shouldered Blanket with Bees

Whilst knitting Oblovesty I kept thinking about how some neat shoulders could be added to this type of construction rather than just relying on the stretch and drape of the fabric created. I ended up actually folding the garment a couple of times just to see what might need to happen.

Start as previously, do armholes as previously (or would they be better being done after the shoulder shaping has started???) then start doing decreases along the side of the diagonal that is the back (along the shoulder) rather than increases and increase every round along the front side of those diagonals.
Don’t know whether anything different needs to be done at bottom diagonals or not.

I’ve decided that more increases regularly along the bottom diagonals than along the top will be helpful in creating a vertical front line and in creating enough room for bum and hips - increased every round.

Started with JMCO 3 sts then kfb the single sts so that there are two stitches each needle, then started the rounds.

Black yarn held double.
I just received the Barbara Walker mosaic knitting book and couldn’t help incorporating something from it!

Definitely some fudging of the mosaic pattern around the corners - I’m telling myself that this is ok b/c I haven’t done this kind of knitting b/f and I’m making the garment up as I go along.

Really enjoying the mosaic knitting. It is a type of slip stitch patterning where all of the floats are at the back of the work. Can be in garter, too, but this results in the pattern being more vertically compressed. In order to get the patterning to look ok in each ‘panel’ of the garment, I found the centre of the chart and placed that central column of stitches on the ‘central’ column of stitches of each panel that I have marked by ktbl. Note that this isn’t actually the middle stitch of the side panels b/c there are always more increases along the diagonals below than along the diagonals above, but that doesn’t matter. It turns out that by doing it this way, the patterning across each diagonal should be symmetrical. There is a vertical line of symmetry down the centre of the garment but not a horizontal one, even though everything looks “right”.

Mosaic pattern took up far more space than I anticipated but I don’t care!. I was nearly at the point to do the armholes when the mosaic was finished.

Faded in the next colour by doing four, then three, then two rounds of light in b/w, then alternating rounds a few times, then fading the old one out similarly.

Back at shoulders is 36cm
Armholes 25cm high

Had to make sure armholes were done over two rows in the same colour given that I was in the process of fading in the next colour

At armholes, 46 sts to mid panel line, then 18 sts past it.

Shoulders are interesting! Needed to put two extra points of decreases for each shoulder in order to be able to decrease enough sts in time. One point just behind the shoulder and one close to the edges of the neck. These were in addition to the decreases along the “diagonal”. I did single dec.s behind each shoulder and CDDs at the neck edges. Sorting out what happens with the fronts is proving interesting!!! Started by increasing every round but realised this was not a good thing. Went back to inc in two out of three rounds to see how it goes.

Collar creation needs lots of increases in a short space across the back in order to push the shoulder diagonals forward. Would have been good to have them planned to be regular. Don’t think you need to change the inc.s on the other side of those diagonals.

Back collar knitted in reverse stocking stitch so that the planned colour work will be properly visible when the collar is turned down. Probably just made life very difficult for myself, but we will see!

Chart orientation for edge required more thought than I realised at first. My first thought was to have it just going around as is. Then I realised that I didn’t want the bees upside down on the collar when it is turned down, so it has to be started from the top. I soon realised that I had to start the band across the bottom from the top, also in order to keep the bees and flowers upright. Starting points were:
Right front and left front start chart at bottom right corner (which is the normal place for chart reading)
Collar starts chart at top right
Hem starts chart at top left
I placed the centre of the bee over the “centre” panel columns of twisted stitches in order to have good placement. This meant that I had to count out and mark pattern repeats so that I knew where to start the chart for each edge.

For Next Time
Keep the increases along the ‘front’ side of the top diagonals consistently inc. two rounds, none on the third. This does NOT need to change at the shoulderwrong!!!! Very few inc.s, if any, are needed across the front of the shoulder!!!
Start dec.s across the back as soon as the shoulder is started. Maybe a column at the neck edge and a column halfway b/w that and the shoulder line. Neck edge could be single and other could be CDDs. Not sure about row spacing, but every 3 or four would probably do it.

Forgot to do a row of purl and/or a row of rib to try to control curling at the edge. I am considering attempting to do something decorative with a needle, after I finish the very, very long bind off, to try to control rolling of the edges.

Overall
Well, this started out as a pure exploration of the possibility of creating shoulders in a “centrifugal” construction. It has turned out better than expected - quite stylish, comfy and wearable. Nothing to be unhappy about there!

However, there are improvements to be made. The other thing that made this project a bit more complicated is that I decided to add some colourwork when Barbara Walker’s Mosaic Knitting book arrived in the mail and then Andrea Rangel’s Alterknit Stitch Dictionary a few days later. I’ve only done a very small amount of colourwork knitting in the past, so there was a steep learning curve involved.

I’ve decided it would help to think in terms of construction and colourwork separately.

Construction
Overall, I’m really happy with how the construction method went. It worked!
I’ve had some ideas about tweaking the tiny JMCO, but it is working ok - doesn’t seem to stretch out and become too gauzy to badly. Doesn’t form a lump or bump. Is quite easy to do. I think the trick is to try to keep it to three stitches, or if you make it four, try to make the last stitch formed”attached” to the diagonally opposite stitch by using the tail (somehow )

I kept the middle column of stitches in each “panel” as ktbl throughout the garment. This helped me a great deal in knowing where I was and keeping symmetry.

Throughout the back, I used inc two out of three rounds for the top two diagonals and increase every round for the bottom two. I hadn’t quite figured out how to make the diagonals match visually until after the first lot of colourwork. This is the reason why the bottom two diagonals are yo,k1tbl, yo, then m1r, k1, k1tbl, k1, m1l the following round, alternating the two rounds until after the back colourwork. The top diagonals were
Yo, ktbl,yo
No increase but continue with ktbl for the diagonal st
M1r, ktbl, m1l
For the bottom diagonals after the colourwork, I did:
Yo, ktbl, yo
M1r, k1, ktbl, k1, m1l
M1r, ktbl, m1l

3st icord bind off and cast on to form the armholes. I am toying with the idea of putting the stitches on hold instead of binding off and then JMCO and putting the unused stitches on hold so the entire armhole can be finished in one go (or a sleeve created).
At the shoulder point, I commenced the following instead of the inc.s on the medial side of the top diagonals:
CDD, yo, ktbl
K2 tog, ktbl
K2tog, ktbl
On the left.
Reversed for the right shoulder:
Ktbl, yo, CDD
Ktbl, SSK
Ktbl, SSK

This was done until the neck edge was reached. It soon became apparent that extra dec.s were needed across the top edge or it would take way too long to get to the correct neck width, so I added extra decrease points. This worked really well!!! The neck fits beautifully. I did two rows of k1sl1 across the neck to try to control stretching out on that area and I did neither inc.s nor dec.s for a few rounds so that it sits snuggly and comfortably.

I wasn’t sure what should be done with the shaping across the front of the shoulder - turns out that no shaping (neither inc.s nor dec.s) would probably be ok, but a couple of inc.s at the beginning and a couple at the neck would probably create a nice shape. Let’s just say that I didn’t do either of these options!

To create the collar, I restarted the original three round inc pattern on the front side of the top diagonals and inc.d every round for the back side of the top diagonals. I also did some inc.s at the neck edges and some along the centre in order to push the diagonal around to the front and create a rounded collar. In future, I am going to actually try creating a proper neckline by doing rapid dec.s along the the front once the neck edge is reached

As for the bottom half, it is still slightly more snug across the back under the armholes than I was aiming for … but I am considerably larger at the moment than usual. In any case, it would make sense to add a few extra inc.s to the back width (probably centre back, bottom panel) prior to reaching the point of doing the armholes.

There were a few factors that meant the fronts don’t drape in the manner I wanted. They tend to want to fall towards the sides or back. I think it was somewhat helped by me reverting to two inc per three rounds on the front sides of the bottom diagonals and keeping inc every round on the back side.

It continues to surprise me how far across the fronts need to come. I really need to do some comparison diameters around my body so that I have more of an idea when I can stop.

I moved some of the collar inc.s so that they were b/w the colourwork motifs.

After I finished, I realised that I had forgotten to do anything to stop the edges rolling. I have tried a kind of embroidery on one of the armholes to see if that will help. It could be done on the other edges if it seems successful after washing and blocking.

Colourwork
Yarn: apparently plays a big role in the outcome of colourwork, so I thought I would mention it first. Best is supposed to be something “woolly “ - something grippy and with a halo and some elasticity and memory. Most “woolly” yarns I find itchy, unfortunately! Anyway, the yarn I used is shiny, slippery, has no elasticity and very little memory - and almost no halo at all.
… I didn’t let this stop me from trying, though, and I’m actually pleased with how it turned out inspite of my beginner status and use of unsuitable yarn.

There are actually two different colourwork techniques used in the project. The first lot is mosaic knitting (never tried b/f) and the second lot is fair isle (only briefly tried once). I never really understood the difference previously. They are both a type of stranded colourwork (intarsia is the only type of non-stranded colourwork I can think of). The mosaic knitting results in free floats across the back and some vertically elongated stitches. Each row is done twice (therefore, ea chart row represents two actual rows) . You use only one colour at a time, slipping any stitches meant to be the other colour. The second row is exactly the same as the first of the pair. You do two rows of one colour then two rows of the other colour. It can be thought of as a type of slip stitch knitting where all of the floats are kept to the wrong side and the longest elongated stitches are two rows tall. The Fair Isle technique, as per the band close to the edge in my project, results in a fabric with floats across the reverse which might or might not be caught to prevent snagging, and no elongated stitches b/c every stitch is worked every row. Each chart row represents a single row of knitting. You utilise two (or more) colours at the same time. There is a variety of ways of organising the yarn. When knitting normally, I hold the yarn in my right hand. I decided to try holding the background yarn in my right hand and the pattern yarn in my left hand. Perseverance paid off. I wasn’t fast, but I got there! The most difficult thing was tensioning the left hand yarn. I found that having it wrapped around my middle finger probably worked the best, but fourth finger also worked. Whether the yarn went under or over the other fingers varied. I also found that having that yarn tucked down on the left up close to my body prevented the loop on my middle finger from being pulled off as the yarn was pulled. I still would like to try some other ways of holding the yarn, incl a knitting thimble, but this way is definitely doable for me and might end up being best.
Oh, almost forgot that I did the collar in reverse stocking stitch in order for the band to be right side out. I cheated and dropped each yarn when not in use rather than learning fair isle whilst purling right now. It seems to have worked ok .

The other thing I wanted to say about the fair isle pattern is that the ends at each diagonal would have looked much better if I had just elimanted any elements of the motif that were not going to be entire. I actually like the patterning formed when the diagonal is a line of symmetry (as per the mosaic section of the project) but it looks kind of messy and underprepared when the diagonal is not a line of symmetry and you get partial, different motifs on each side (as per the fair isle)

Note on the amount of yarn used: the main yarn comes packaged as 4x 50g balls, one silver, one mid grey, one dark grey, one black. I had to buy 4 packages. There is one ball of black and almost one ball of dark grey left over. One and a half balls of light grey left. About one third of a ball of the silver. This doesn’t include the cotton yarn that I used doubled as the first contrast colour.