03-01-2025

unwashed ga swatch: 23 st x 32 rows 4”

washed ga swatch: 22 x 31

Yarn grows just a hair.

Note: My actual project gauge was way off from this by an extra half-stitch per inch. This ended up by not mattering because starting with a waist band was not very precise anyway. Shaping the armholes properly resulted in a bodice that worked out fine. In fact, this is probably the best-fitted set of shoulders I’ve made to date.

With a deep V neck, it’s important not to make the back of the neck too wide, something I finally got right.

But it’s a sign from the yarn gods to knit gauge swatches in a more relaxed tension to match what happens when I’m knitting thousands of stitches, often while watching TV or reading and not thinking about it too much.

Center panel chart made with stitchfiddle.com.

Photos taken with the aid of a powerful SAD light, which makes the colors look brighter than they would otherwise appear. (Pics with more red in them were taken when daylight was coming through the windows) Keep this in mind while yarn shopping.

03-01-2025

The waist band, knit in Canary, is in OXO cable, which I enjoy knitting even thought it feels like it’s always trying to fake me out on cable crosses.

03-04-2025

Double decrease note: The DD on the right of the panel is k3tog. The DD on the left is SSSK (slip three knitwise, sl 3 back to left needle purlwise, k3tog tbl).

03-04-2025

Step one: knit OXO cable bordered by k2 ribs until wide enough to go around waist without stretching. The OXO with ribs and selvedge sitches is 18 st wide. Less than one skein of CC required. Be sure to knit every edge stitch. Do not slip. You need a firm edge.

Graft the ends together.

Situate the graft, which will never be 100% tidy, on the side of the body where it will be hidden under the arm. Find the opposite side of the loop, which will be under the other arm, and mark it with something. move the opposite side 1/2 repeat back, because the back of the sweater will need to be slightly narrower than the front. At least, it will if you have a rack to accommodate.

Step two: Pick up stitches with main color all the way around in a two stitches per three row ratio.

Mark the center front, adjusting markers as needed, so that there is the same number of stitches on each side of the front of the sweater. Don’t mess this up, because nobody likes a crooked sweater.

The panel is 48 stitches wide. Set markers 24 stitches to either side of the center.

Knit one round plain. Knit two more rounds establishing the purl ribs in the front center panel.

Start knitting the panel between the front markers.

Knit around plain except for the panel.

03-09-2025

Keep knitting until you hit the bottom of the bust.

When deciding what that point is, keep in mind that a peplum in cotton yarn is heavy and will stretch out the fabric, making the torso longer.

Throw in some short rows for the bust. How many? I dunno, it’s your bust.

Keep knitting until you reach the bottom of the armholes. Make sure to compare to a pre-existing sweater so you know where that is.

03-11-2025

Because there are no stitches in between the center two cables, and because the neckline will need a selvedge stitch on each side, I increased (lifted inc) twice in the middle of the center cables two rows before I split them in two.

Most instances of similar leaf lace just cut off at the top. I wanted to end it at a point to fit the neckline. Single decreases on the inside edge work just fine.

The four plait braid at the side of the neck just sort of happened.

03-16-2025

37 st picked up on each side of armhole, 12 underarm. This is a ratio of one stitch picked up every two rows, which is different than the usual 2:3, but 2:3 gave huge, floppy armholes.

03-26-2025

Here’s how I did the cable at the elbow:

There are 64 stitches on the needle when I knit to the elbow, which is tidily at the end of a skein.

I cast on 17 stitches and knit four repeats (64 rows) of OXO cable BUT one edge has k3 (two rib stitches and one selvedge) and the other has k2 (two rib stitches).

Knit every edge stitch; don’t slip anything. You need a firm edge. Graft the ends together as tidily as you can. Put the grafted edge at the underarm where any untidiness hopefully won’t be seen. Much.

You could absolutely sew/graft the cable onto the bottom of the armhole (in which case, you should probably knit the cable with a selvedge stitch), but I hate sewing.

Line up the two-stitch edge against the sleeve end, which is still live stitches on the needles. Pin it in place if that helps you. Using a crochet hook approximately the same size as your needle, insert the hook between the two edge stitches. Then insert the hook through one of the live stitches, twisted (less slack here is good). Draw a loop of the CC color back through and make a nice, careful, tidy slip stitch. Do not draw it too tight or your sleeve will end up tight. Repeat until you’ve slip stitched the cable to the sleeve all the way around, but make sure to check part-way through to be sure that your stitches are tidy and not too tight.

It’s easy enough to pull out the slip stitch and put the sleeve stitch edges back on the needle if you mess up. Have patience. It doesn’t take long.

03-28-2025

The eyelet pattern for the bell sleeves and the peplum is a tablecloth edging I got out of a reproduction of a very old Butterick knitting periodical. It’s an edging (knit at a right angle) with rows of eyelets with some stockinette in between them. You can absolutely knit it separately and sew it on later if that’s easier, but I knitted it on.

12 eyelets (24 stitches). 1 st on the outer selvedge. 5 st on the inner for 30 stitches.

You can absolutely make this edging shorter or longer as you wish and as fits the drape of your fabric in your chosen yarn. Cotton/linen is very floppy.

Do this:

Cast on 30 stitches. k one row, p 1 row, knit 1 row to the last stitch. Slip the last stitch. Pick up a stitch behind the selvedge stitch on the bottom edge of the cable at the inside of the sleeve where the cable graft is messy anyway. Slip both of these stitches back to the left needle and k2tog. Turn.

K 1 row (you’re on the wrong side, so this will be a purl row). Turn.

Slip the first stitch of the new row (you’ll do that every outside row). *k2tog, yo* 12 times. k4. Slip the last stitch, pick up a stitch through the cable selvedge, k2tog, turn.

k1 row. Purl the next row, but stop with 4 stitches left on the needle and turn a short row. You do not have to do a wrap-and-turn or any other short row technique. Just turn. Any hole won’t show. I promise. P to the end of the row, then turn around and knit the whole row (resolving the short row) ending with the slip, pick up, k2tog.

Repeat the above until you have 32 rows of eyelets (you had 64 edge stitches on the cable, so you should have 32 rows of eyelet rows. If you did a different number, you have a different number of eyelet rows.)

Add a pair of plain rows, ending at the outside edge, and graft the live stitches to the cast-on edge. You have lots of extra space for grafting, so don’t be afraid to overlap a bit. There will be a little extra knit at the cuff, but nobody will see it, because you put this on the inside of the arm, right?

04-07-2025

The peplum is done exactly like a sleeve, only longer. Much longer.