My normal sweater knitting is bottom-up, in pieces – cast on the back, knit to the top, and cast off. Cast on one front, knit to the top, and cast off, and do it again for the second front. Same with the sleeves. It’s easier for traveling (I used to do a lot of traveling), it’s easier for allowing one or more cats to sit in my lap while I knitted, and the rows are shorter than if I’m knitting everything all in one swell foop.
But, last year there was a bit of a panic when it seemed that my favorite pattern generator (Amy Herzog’s Custom Fit) would be disappearing. I can’t get gauge to save my life, and I need to knit about three different sizes in one sweater, so it’s easier to build a sweater pattern around my gauge and my body than try to shoe-horn one or both into a commercial pattern. I found Phrancko’s sweater pattern generator, and thought I would give it a try as it produces set-in sleeve sweaters, although top-down and all-in-one, rather than bottom-up and pieced.
I had, previously knitted Jurisfiction from Glenna C, but ended up frogging it because of massive issues with the knitting. I thought I’d try it again, so generated a pattern using the Phrancko site and plunged in, using the numbers from that pattern, adding extra stitches to account for cable pull-in, and working top-down, also converting it because the only pattern available at the time was a pull-over. I run far too hot for pull-overs, so was cardiganizing it instead.
Anyone who knits sweaters top down knows that nearly all of them have you knit the sleeves last, at which point you have the entire sweater flopping around in your lap as you knit. I was knitting the body flat, so why knit the sleeve in the round? I decided to do something different and when I reached the point of setting aside stitches that would become the sleeves so that I could work on the body, I set aside the body stitches and knitted the sleeves instead! Then I blocked the whole mess, seamed the sleeve seams, put the body stitches back on the needle and picked up for the underarms, and away I went! It did, however, produce a very strange-looking shape during blocking –
I’m not sure if it looks more like a dis-assembled pair of trousers, or a smashed elephant. What do you think?
There's a cat hair in my knitting! 