Can this thing be knit seamlessly, from the top down, sleeves, yoke, and all? Let’s find out.

Major modification: removing back pleat. That pleat is probably what drew most of us to the pattern in the first place. But looking at other Ravelers’ versions of this pattern, the pleat seems to hang heavily or awkwardly. In this version it’s replaced with increases (to give the jacket its swing) and a little wrapped-stitch decoration that simulated the elegant inverted V angle of the pleat.

Also, instead of the diamond pattern on the back and along the front edges, I’m just using the wrapped-stitch decoration. On the fronts it’s combined with a bit of seed stitch for the edging.

Jacket Blueprint
Starting at where the shoulder seam would normally be, we’ll cast on for one shoulder, work a little bit down the front of the shoulder, then work a little down the back of the shoulder.

We’ll then do the other little bitty shoulder, reversing shapings. The two shoulder bits are then connected across the back of the neckline by casting on some stitches. The yoke in the original pattern is knitted from side to side. Here, you just knit it in the “regular” orientation, although in this case this means top to bottom. There isn’t a separate yoke piece any more.

With a little bit of shoulder knitted for the front and back, stitches are then picked up for the upper sleeve cap, mimicking an inset sleeve. Some short-row shaping happens here.

The jacket continues to be knit now on one big circular needle: across one front, across one sleeve cap, across the back, across the other sleeve cap, across the other front. Turn. Keep going, following various increases and whatnot to shape the sleeves and armholes.

At the bottom of the armholes, the stitches that form the sleeves are then worked separately in the round, and the body is worked as a long continuous row (back and forth).

Make sense?

Wrapped-stitch decoration

On RS rows, pull a loop of the working yarn between stitches 2 and 3 on the left needle (counting from right to left), from the back of the work to the front.

Draw this loop across the front of the work to the right, toward the gap between the left and right needles. Hook the loop over the tip of the left needle. This forms a horizontal band of two yarn strands across the front of the work (in front of stitches one and two on the left needle.

Work the next stitch together with the new loop, like knitting two stitches together. Practice a few to get a feel for how much slack to give the loop of yarn that crosses in front of the work.

Front Shoulder
Using #5 dpn, cast on 29 sts for the shoulder using provisional/invisible method.

Short row shaping using Japanese method. I started this on the purl side, so (for size 41):

P6, turn/wrap, K back to beginning.

P12, picking up the turned wrap as you go, turn/wrap, K back to beginning.

P18, picking up the turned wrap as you go, turn/wrap, K back to beginning.

P24, picking up the turned wrap as you go, turn/wrap, K back to beginning.

P whole row clean. Start neck shaping for front, increasing on RS rows where the printed pattern has decreases (colons are WS/purl rows without increases):

1 : 1 : 2 : 2 : 2 : 4 : 4 (total now 46 sts)

Back Shoulder
Pick up the 29 stitches on holder. Do the short-row sequence, to shape shoulder, then increases for back neckline shaping:

1 : 2 : 2 : 4 : 3 (total now 41 sts).

Make second shoulder piece for other side, reversing all shaping.

Connect and complete the back neckline shaping by casting on 9 sts between the two back sections (total 91 sts). If you do this with the invisible method, you can leave these stitches on a holder and pick up later for the neckline trim band.

Center Back Shaping
This version of Pearl Buck eliminates the actual pleat in the center back of the jacket. To give it some swing, we’ll still follow the increases as given in the original pattern.

Look at the pleat chart. As originally knit (bottom up), pairs of decreases help form the angled edges of the pleat. This version will ignore the outermost decreases and just use the decreases shown as marked on the raised part of the pleat itself (where the diamond pattern is).

But, of course, since this is knit from the top down, these are instead increases so that the angled section gets wider toward the bottom of the jacket.

Coming up is the tricky part for the set-in sleeves. So figure out how you want to handle the back increases, and just follow that plan at the same time as the specific shaping of the sleeves.

I marked a section 11 sts wide at the center back, starting at the neckline.

I used two of the stitches on either side of this section for the wrapped decorative stitches: 2 sts wrapped, 7 stockinette, 2 sts wrapped = 11 sts.

Every 12 rows I increased 1 stitch on each edge of the stockinette area between the wrapped stitches. I did this nine times for a total of 18 increases in the back “wedge” in lieu of the pleat.

I think the original pattern as written has a difference of 22 stitches forming the pleat, so it’s about the same. You can adjust depending on how wide you want the bottom of your jacket to be.

Set-in sleeves
As the pattern is written, the tops of the sleeves are formed by binding off 3, then 4, sts on each edge of the sleeve, then binding off the remaining 14 sts.

3 + 3 + 4 + 4 + 14 = 28. So, we’ll pick up 28 sts to form the top of the set in sleeves. According to the gauge, this means we need a length of about 40 rows worked across the sleeve edge of the front shoulder & back shoulder piece already knit.

Work a total of 21 rows for the back shoulders and each of the front shoulders. With a dpn, pick up 28 sts along the sleeve edge of one side of the shoulder piece, spanning the 40 rows knit from front to back.

Shape sleeve using short rows: K 21, turn, P 14, turn, K 18, turn, K 22, turn, P 25, turn, K 28.

Repeat for other sleeve.

Starting at the front open edge of the jacket (like where the cardigan button band would be), work one full row “clean,” including the sleeve stitches from the dpn’s. Place markers where the sleeves meet the body (there should be four, two for each sleeve). Now it’s one long straight row.

Continue working as long rows, shaping sleeves by increasing on RS rows as noted below. Make these increases inside the markers that establish where the sleeves are, and do a set of increases for both sides of the sleeve cap (the sleeve cap increases should be symmetrical).

(colons mean work a WS/purl row without increases, “:::” means work three rows without increases) --

1 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 : 1 ::: 1 ::: 1 :::

There are now 50 stitches making up each sleeve cap. Should be looking a bit like a sweater now!

So far, there hasn’t been much shaping of the armhole: just the sleeve. Now comes two kinds of shaping, increasing for the way the armhole curves under your arm, and increasing for the “flare” of the sleeve under your arm. These are knit into the jacket as part of the long rows.

When the increases are finished, the sleeve cap section will connect under the arms and be knit separately in the round to form the sleeve tubes, and the front and back sides of the body will connect under the arms and be knit to form the main body (torso) of the jacket.

Use the same increase shaping for both the sleeves and the armholes. This means making an increase on either side of the markers that establish the sleeve cap area. It’s okay to offset the increases by a stitch or two, so you’re not increasing into two adjacent stitches (which can stretch the stitches and make them “holey” or not lie flat).

Increases for armholes/sleeve flare --

1 : 1 : 1 : 1 1 1 (total now for sleeve cap 72 sts)

Starting at the beginning of the long row, work all the stitches across one sweater front until the first sleeve marker. Transfer all the stitches for one sleeve onto a piece of spare yarn (tie ends together so the stitches stay on) or a spare circular needle or whatever works best. These will be set aside and knitted after the body is completed.

So the front has been worked, now cast on 5 sts for the remaining underarm portion of the front, place marker to divide the back from the front, and cast on another 5 sts for the remaining under arm portion of the back.

Work across all the back stitches. Place all stitches for the second sleeve cap on a holder as before, cast on 5 sts, place marker, cast on 5 sts, work across front of sweater.

Whew!

Body
Now there are two armholes formed by the sleeve caps, and one long row that is now just the fronts and back of the jacket joined together.

Continue working body of jacket. In addition to the increases in the center back in place of the pleat, there are a few additional increases along the sides, where the side seam would be.

For the back part, the original pattern specifies about 3 sts decreases along the side seam for the back section, and about 12 sts for the front sections.

With a marker keeping track of where the side seam is, I made 1 increase every 6 rows on each side, done 12 times. I did this on the “front” side of the side seam marker, but make a nice smooth increase so it’ll be invisible and won’t really matter.

Totals: 12 increases per side = 24, plus 18 increases for the back wedge, = 42 stitches increased from the underarms to the bottom hem. Swing!

Total knitted back length from unfinished collar edge to bottom hem is 22”. Some Ravelers complained that this yields too-short a jacket, but I think that with the removal of the pleat the jacket hangs better and doesn’t look as boxy.

But the beauty of top-down knitting is that you can try on the jacket and keep on going if you want something longer! Just bind off when you’ve hit your perfect length.

For this version, there are rows of wrapped stitches and a bottom edge of four rows of seed stitch (same as what’s along the vertical front edges).

Completing the sleeves
Work these in the round by picking up all the stitches on a holder, and additionally picking up 10 underarm stitches from the 10 cast-on stitches that were made for the underarm part of the body. Placing a marker in the middle of these 10 underarm stitches will help keep track of the center of the sleeve where the seam would have been.

I added 5 pairs of increases along this seam/marker, every 12 rows, for a total of 10 increases for the sleeves.

Forgot to measure total sleeve length before giving away as a present, but was about four inches shy of hitting the wristbone. Very flattering.

Also added two I-cord closures, sewn onto the front edges of the jacket.

Did I forget anything else? Please let me know if you want to try this version, and if I can clarify anything in these notes.

It looks very fabulous and I will knit one for myself eventually.