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FINISHING THE PONCHO June 25, 2017 by Susan Well, well well.  Sometimes the best laid plans go crashing off the counter and land jelly-side-down.  The poncho didn’t exactly fit! Why not?  Well, I COULD blame it on blocking….after all, I didn’t swatch, wet the swatch, dry it flat, and THEN count the stitches for my gauge.  I just swatched and counted.   In wetting these cables, I stretched it a little to dry so the cables would lay flat.  However, I checked and got 17 inches and 35 inches, exactly as I had intended. I could also maybe blame my measuring, as I measured from the top of the shoulder.  That IS where it falls, but that leads to it sliding down my arms, so that was a mistake. I wound up with a 23 inch hole for the neck.  When I stick a tape measure around my neck at this amount, it seems fine.  All I can say is making it up as you go sometimes doesn’t lead to predictable

results.

With my new poncho sliding off my shoulders, I decided the way to go now was to add some 1×1 ribbing at the neck, purling 3 together in 4 places every other row – at each shoulder and in the front and back seams.  I measured my neck area again (just to give me something somewhat random to shoot for, why not).   I then figured out how many rows it would take to reach my new intended smaller number of inches. This lead to adding 2 inches of ribbing to finish this off. I picked up my stitches on the same size circular needle, making sure to get each one.  All in all, it worked out in the end, I’m happy with the ribbed result.  Here is the completely finished poncho.

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WHAT’S NEW

August 7, 2016 by Susan I’ve added an update to the bottom of the random cable post: https://ilovesocks.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/working-without-patterns-how-to-make-up-a-random-cable/ And a new rainbow scarf update to the bottom of the weaving post: https://ilovesocks.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/working-without-patterns-weaving-skirt-and-scarves/ A new textured knit scarf: This was made using a chart.  Even though it is a knit/purl mix, it does roll into a tube scarf.  Double crochet on the edges (for US; UK= treble crochet) with hook I.  The main thing to remember when adding crochet to knitting is to save space between stitches so your crochet doesn’t end up too baggy and bunch up. REFERENCE:    Size 7 needles.  STITCH CHART FOLLOWED_: The New Knitting Stitch Library. _Lesley Stanfield. Quarto Publishing, 1992. Chart 11, pg. 28.  YARN:  Caron Simply Soft, color: Pagoda.

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WORKING WITHOUT PATTERNS – HOW TO MAKE UP A RANDOM CABLE April 3, 2016 by Susan This post is mainly for the knitters, but for those who CROCHET, you can cable too!  I found this Craftsy tutorial online for cables on crochet:  http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/12/how-to-crochet-cables/ If knitting cables is old hat for you, you probably already know all of this.  But if you are in the group who says “Wow, look at those beautiful cables on that sweater, I’d love to cable but it looks too hard.”, this post will help you out.  You don’t have to understand confusing looking charts to learn how to cable.  (I put off learning to cable for years because the charts looked hard.)  But it isn’t hard at all!  It really only requires you to look at your cable and do what it looks like needs to happen.  If you want to, you can just make them up and throw them into anything you make. Here’s an example: DESIGNING YOUR CABLE:  In my recent poncho post, I showed this as my “random cable”. This is just one I made up that will go around the neckline on this work in progress.  All it takes to make it look professional is to do the same thing to each one and get a whole row of things done the same way.  To do that, make sure you always move your cables over the same number of stitches, and always at a regular interval (move cables every 2 rows, or every 4 rows for example.) These are stockinette stitches on a garter stitch background. I would highly recommend doing a project, (or at least a swatch with some leftover yarn), just to practice random cabling.  Just free wheel it and make stuff up as you go, and see how it all comes out looking.  That’s what I did a long time ago with this scarf.  This experimentation helped me know what worked and what didn’t.  It is a mix of random cabling of stockinette stitches with backgrounds of garter, purl and seed stitch, with garter on the edges to help foil curling.  I learned what parts want to roll inward, what parts came out looking wider, etc.  So, here we go! Link to post I made about this scarf while I was doing it: https://ilovesocks.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/working-without-patterns-cabled-purse/

HOW TO CABLE

MOVING STITCHES TO THE RIGHT: Here we see a cable which I’ve moved randomly back and forth, stockinette on a purl background.  I’m 2 stitches ahead of my cable, so what I do now is stop and look at it, and decide what I want it to do.  I want this cable to now swing to the right.  I think about what will make this happen.  It will happen if the 2 stitches of stockinette cable go over the one purl stitch to the right of the cable, so that is what I’m going to do.

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You need a cable needle.  You can use any big piece of bent wire if you don’t have one.  I’m going to move this cable over_ one_ stitch.  (You can also move over 2 or a few stitches if you want a more extreme bend to the right.)  I put the one purl stitch on my

cable needle.

Now I think about how I want it to look.  I want the stockinette to be on the top of the right side of the cloth, so this means the cable needle stitch has to be in the back when I knit the stockinette cable stitches.  If I want the cable to move one to the right, I need to knit the cable stitches first. Throw the cable needle to the back side, then knit the 2 stitches that come next, the cable stockinettes.

(photo below)

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Next, put the stitch from the cable needle back onto the left hand needle, then work that stitch, (in this case, it’s a purl – do the stitch type you’re doing as your background.)  Then just continue on, working the rest of the background. In short, just look at it, and see what it looks like you should do to achieve what you want to see. MOVING THE CABLE TO THE LEFT: I’ve arrived at the cable, so I stop here and decide what to do. I’m going to move these two cables toward each other, and eventually cross one over the other.  This means the first cable has to move one to the left. I purl up to the cable, because I want to see the two stockinette stitches go over the top of the purl stitch on the left side of them, so I don’t need the purl stitch before the cable. I put the two stockinette cable stitches on a cable needle, which will lay on the front side of the work.  (I don’t want them getting covered up, which they would if the needle with those on it hung to

back side.)

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I then purl the background stitch that was to the left of the cable, this moves it behind and to the right side of the cable.  Then put the 2 stitches from the cable needle back on the left needle and knit them.  You’ve finished moving the cable one to the left. (THE PLAN FOR THIS CABLE:  These two cables have been moved – one to the left which I showed you, then I moved the other one to the right – now they meet.  I’ll do the reverse side of this garment without moving any cables, then when I’m back on the right side for the following row, I’ll cross one cable over the other here.  To do that, I will move one cable over two stitches instead of one, just to get it all over at once.)

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DOING A ROPE CABLE:

This is a cable that just twists around and around itself to look like rope.  It has a stockinette background, so doesn’t stand out so much as it would if you do it over a purl, or other type of background.  To achieve rope, I wait 4 or more rows between each cable twist, (otherwise you’ll get a very tightly twisted rope – also okay, if that’s what you’re going for.)  You can see that it looks like three stitches just wrap around 3 stitches each time, and you can see what needs to happen next.  The three outlined in black will go in the front, and the three outlined in blue will go behind them.  So you have 6 stitches involved in  this cable. When you arrive at this cable, the three on the right side (black outline) go on the cable needle and hang in the front, (because you want them to end up in the front). Knit the three on the left hand needle, (these were the blue outline stitches), which will bring those

behind.

Then put the three from the cable needle back on the left needle and knit those.  Finished! Continue knitting.

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HOW TO CABLE A BRAID: (If you don’t know how to braid, please do a search online for instructions.  You will need to know how to braid to do this cable.) The braid cable is a little more complicated than the other three, but if you know how to braid you shouldn’t have any problem, you already know what it should look like.  The cable on the left is a braid on a stockinette background, but would stand out more on a contrasting background, as you see the cable over purls on the right

side does.

I’m including a lot of detail in case it helps someone, but in short, you are only moving one section over the other, left and right, just like what was done to cable above.  I’ve covered cable braids a long time ago, but this is more detailed and has more pictures. LETS BRAID: Go up to the stitches that are involved, and stop to think about what should happen next.  Notice I have a band of 3 stitches that are not involved (the three immediately after the purls).  I have already knit those to get them out of the way.  The next 9 on the left needle are all of the stitches involved in the

braid.)

I’m braiding just like you would hair.  I have three equal sections to intertwine.  In this case, I made each section three stitches wide, so there are 9 stitches involved in this cable, but you only ever work with 6 at once, (you only ever cross one section over one other at a time, never two, just like when you braid). I will keep these same three stitches outlined in yellow to make them easy to follow.  You can see below that these three are the left section that needs to cross in front of the middle section to make the next cross.  Also, you can see I waited 4 rows between moving each part of the cable, (at least up until this point, before I decided to just go crazy random with it).  I never cable on the wrong side for this, only the right side, and only every other visit to the

right side.

In the photo below, I have knit 3 more stitches beyond the photo above.  To move the left section of the braid over the middle section, I don’t do anything with the right section of the braid right now.  I knit past it.

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So what do you do now?  You want these 3 in yellow to go over the top of the three to the right of them.  See if you can figure out what to do with your cable needle, then check the photo below for the

answer.

You can make this happen by putting the three that are next on the left needle onto a cable needle, and putting them to the back side of the work.  Now you are ready to knit the three on the left needle outlined in yellow, which will make them go in front and to the right. After you knit the yellow ones, you put the three from the cable needle back  onto the left needle and knit those.

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You’ve made the next section in the braid.  Continue the rest of

the row.

A few rows later, HOW WILL YOU DO THE NEXT SECTION, WHICH GOES BACK THE OTHER WAY?  Of your nine braid stitches, three on the right hand side will have to go onto a cable needle and hang to the front while you work the three to the left of that (the middle section), then put the 3 back on the left needle and knit.  Just knit the leftmost section, and continue your row. After you do a few cables, you will stop at the cable, look and think, and you will know what needs to happen next and how to do it.  If you make a mistake, and it doesn’t look right, it’s only a few stitches, you can always unknit those few and try again. MAKING A REPEATING CABLE PATTERN: Once you’ve tried some cabling, and you know what cables you want to do on a project, then comes a little planning.   If you want it to come out perfect, you’ll have to do some counting to make sure you have the right number of stitches for each cable area with no leftovers.  It may be easier for you if you draw out what you want to do, just to help you count your needed

number of stitches.

_Counting example from what I did on the red poncho neckline above:_ The cable starts out 4 stitches wide at the bottom, then splits into 2 groups of 2 stitches, cabling to the left and right, then joins again as 4 at the top.  There were 10 garter stitches between each group of 4 starting cable stitches.  This means each motif was 14 stitches wide.   GREAT TIP TO MAKE THIS PARTICULAR CABLE SUPER EASY – If you do a stockinette cable on a background of garter stitch, always move your cables when you’re working on the purl side (back side) of the garment.  This will make it so the right side row is _always all_ knits, with no cabling, all the way across!  I only moved the cables on the purl side so the knit side could always be fast and easy to

do.

UPDATE:  HOW MUCH RANDOM IS TOO MUCH RANDOM? One piece of the poncho is complete, I still have to make the other rectangle.  Here’s how it came out.

Before blocking:

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After blocking:

There might be such a thing as TOO random, as you can see by the very uneven braid.  I was still playing with this garment and doing many things in a very random way.   I didn’t worry about counting rows between crosses of the braid, so I have crossovers that are wider than others.  That can be good or bad, depending on how you view it.  If you have something so strangely made and unfactory-like, its obvious that its a home made object, not a storebought item of which there are a thousand other copies.  On the other hand, you can also view the “too random” cable as childlike, or unprofessional looking. In the case of the leaves, I like the randomness, because it makes the cables look more like natural tree branches.  The uneven braid, I wound up liking less, because people aren’t used to seeing this much random on most sweaters.  But, that’s what can happen if you play.  As with many things I make up, it may be a little strange looking, but I will still wear it and not worry about it. I will make the other rectangle using different motifs and see how

that comes out!

REFERENCE:  The cabled branches were random, but the leaf came from a chart.  _The New Knitting Stitch Library. _Lesley Stanfield. Quarto Publishing, 1992. Chart 179, pg. 116.  I didn’t do the cables on this chart, just used the center part of the chart which made the leaf shape, including the yarnovers above the leaf.

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WORKING WITHOUT PATTERNS – BABY COLORS PULLOVER March 25, 2016 by Susan There are some BEAUtiful pastel yarns in the baby color section.  I made this sweater using Caron Simply Soft in Baby Brights Ombre. I’ve used this color before on an entrelac scarf and people always

compliment it.

The color pattern varied with how many stitches I used per row, but seemed to mostly want to make stripes. MY MISTAKE:  I learned something doing this.  It came out a bit short.  Not so short I can’t wear it, but shorter than it was when I held it up to myself and decided it was the right length from the hip to start the armholes.  This is why you see a bulge at the waist, that was supposed to be a bulge for the hip.  (It’s a little weirdly lumpy, but I’ll still wear it.)  What went wrong was that I overestimated how big I’d make the armholes, and made them pretty tight.  I shot for an 8″ armhole, (measured flat on one side from middle of the armpit to over the shoulder), and this turned out to fit, but it was small and effected the sweater length.  From now on I will not do armholes as small as that. This picture is probably closer to representing the colors on this yarn.  Every pastel color of the rainbow except green.

HOW IT WAS MADE:

I calculated my needed gauge for hips, waist and bust.  I’ve used this yarn before so I already had my # of stitches per inch.  I cast on in the round at the hip and worked upwards in a tube, increasing or decreasing as needed to reach my numbers.  I tried a knit/purl texture chart for the bottom edge, but didn’t wind up liking it. The variation in color pretty much hid the textured pattern so you can’t even really see what it is, and it looks a bit messy. Ribbing /garter /or seed stitch would have done the trick to prevent curling and probably looked nicer. I divided front and back for the armholes and continued working upward (first the back piece then the front piece).  I bound off the correct # of stitches for the neck in the back and made it shallow, (just a couple of rows from the tops of the shoulders), and kept an equal # of stitches over each shoulder.  Write down how many so you don’t have figure out what that number was when you make the front to make the front shoulder stitch number equal the back number.  The front neck hole I bound off the same way, but made it a little deeper. Then I did double crochet around the neck hole to make it look nice. I did a pretty small opening to have the sweater up around the neck so it would be warm … and I _almost_ messed this up!  I can fit my head through this neck hole, but just barely!  Make sure you don’t make your neck hole too small to fit your head through, or you can’t

wear your sweater.

SLEEVES WITH A SHOULDER CAP:  I did something different this time. I copied a pattern, but in the reverse direction.  I used the sleeve pattern of a sweater I made by calculating their number of inches they used for each part of the sleeve, then calculating my needed number of stitches to achieve this, then doing it all in reverse of the direction of the pattern, which was made from wrist to shoulder, (I do like to make things difficult, don’t I).  I did have a reason – I like to make mine from shoulder to wrist, because I can attach the sleeve after I’ve made a few inches of it, then accurately get a reading on length when I put on the sweater. The shoulder cap part was about 6 and 3/4 inches high (from cast on to the widest part of the sleeve), and the widths had to be calculated with my gauge to come out like this.  Increase or decrease on both ends equally to make it come out a symmetrical piece.  To get the width in inches for the lower part of the sleeve, measure your arm around the elbow and around the wrist, (add room to the measuring tape for a less tight sleeve).

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This is for a tightly fitted sleeve in size medium, not at all baggy. I see by this photo I did pretty thick seams over the shoulders.  I grabbed 2 strands of yarn from both pieces, the shoulder and the sleeve, making a 4 strand thick seam, (plus more for seaming yarn). I probably could have grabbed only 1 piece of yarn from each piece to make it look better, but I like things bolted down and secure, so

there it is.

Caron Simply Soft, Baby Brights Ombre.  Needles: size 8.  Gauge: 4.5

stitches =1 inch

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WORKING WITHOUT PATTERNS – THE HOMESPUN FOREST SWEATER March 6, 2016 by Susan (Quick note for the weavers, I’ve updated my weaving post with pictures of new finished scarves: https://ilovesocks.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/working-without-patterns-weaving-skirt-and-scarves/)

This

one is SO warm!  I love the Homespun. I’ve made several shawls out of it and they are my _carry- everywhere_ warmth in the summer when the air conditioning in public places always freezes me.  And you can just throw them in the washing machine and not worry about felting. For this sweater, I knitted a small square and got my gauge, then calculated how many stitches I’d need for all my parts.  (See this

post

for help with that.) BODY: I cast on my hip amount, then worked upward going back and forth with some garter stitch at the bottom and edges to prevent curling. When I got to the armholes I split to a back and two fronts, and decreased to get my appropriate measurements for under the arm and over the shoulder.  On the fronts, I kept my decreases in the rows next to the garter so my garter border would stay the same width. Then I bound off and seamed over the shoulders.  SLEEVES: I picked up the appropriate amount of stitches at the arm holes and made my sleeves.  I just made tubes, no shoulder caps.  For example: If you make your armholes about 8″ tall for a medium size sweater, you will want to pick up about 15-16 inches worth of stitches.  Just past the shoulder, only a few inches in, I usually decrease a couple of inches to around 11-12 inches worth of stitches, then do most of the sleeve at around 11 inches.  (This measurement will of course vary person to person, so you should measure your arm and use an amount you would find comfortable). I did garter at the wrists to foil curling. I did my sleeves back and forth on a short circular, so I made the seam at the bottom of the arm where it would be most hidden.  When sleeves were long enough and bound off, I stitched up the side of the arms by pulling yarn loops through with a crochet hook. Then I added the clasp with a needle and thread.  I found the clasp pulled on the sweater too much, so I sewed a piece of felt on the back of the sweater behind both parts of the clasp to strengthen this area.  I attached the felt by sewing around the edges, and added more sewing around the clasp to attach it to the felt.  The piece of felt on the right is the most sturdy and doesn’t pull – I put rows of sewing throughout the area, and this seems to work best, so I will go back and do that to the piece on the left too.  You can see in the top picture it pulls a little, but I don’t feel like its going to pull the sweater loose or stretch it out now. Finished!  It was a fairly quick sweater since I used a big yarn and such big needles.  Now I kind of want to make a similar crazy sweater in one of those fun color changing Homespuns.

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YARN: LionBrand Homespun in Forest, and size 10 needles.  MY GAUGE: 3 stitches = 1″ on size 10 needles.  CLASP: La petite #1056.  If I remember right, I picked it up at Joann craft store.

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WORKING WITHOUT PATTERNS – DESIGNING A PONCHO February 14, 2016 by Susan Warning – This didn’t TOTALLY work out, the neck hole wound up a bit big.  See the final post on the finished product before deciding

on measurements:

https://ilovesocks.wordpress.com/2017/06/25/finishing-the-poncho/ _________________________ I’ve never been a great fan of ponchos, (mostly because if I’m cold, I want good coverage, not the open bottom).  Recently however, I saw one in the mall that looked so pretty, I wanted to make it.  It was something like this, with the flowy cable part of the pattern running around the neck and down the front and back: I haven’t even started on one yet, (I currently have 5 other projects going on), but I did make my plan.  Here is how you design

your own poncho.

A common way to make one is to make two identical rectangles and seam them together, like so: You attach the two rectangles together with a seam, then you fold it over and seam the other edge, attaching blue star to blue star, white star to white star.  This is great, nothing could be easier than two rectangles – you can make them however you want -crochet, knit, or

weave.

TO MAKE THE APPROPRIATE SIZE RECTANGLES -WIDTH OF THE RECTANGLES To get the width of your rectangles, (their width is the length of the poncho), put a tape measure on your shoulder where you want the neckline to be, and measure over the top of the shoulder and down your arm to where you want the end to stop near the wrist (or your length of choice).  You will have a longer point hanging in the front, but the length over the arm is probably more critical. -LENGTH OF THE RECTANGLES The length of your rectangles will be determined by what size you want the neckline. You can tape measure the point in the front where the neckline is lowest, over one shoulder to the same point in the back. (See the red line on the drawing below, this is where you measure). This will give you half the amount of the neckline, so then double it.  When I measure I get 17 inches, (neckline a little lower down), so I will make my rectangles (17+17=) 34 inches long. I have seen patterns suggest 32 inches as a “large”, so try it and see what looks good for you. You just need it big enough to stick your head through it without having it so big it falls off the shoulders, or leaves too much neck area exposed to the cold.

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HERE IS ANOTHER METHOD I USED JUST TO DOUBLE CHECK THE SIZE, (THOUGH THE MEASURING TAPE IS PROBABLY SIMPLER THAN THIS ONE). Clip two towels together in the same way you would make the poncho, (following the drawing above). You can use binder clips, hair clips, clothes pins, whatever you have. Wide hair clips like I used will add more variation, narrower items are better.  (This is really a ballpark measurement in my case because I used 3 inch hair clips.) Put it on. The long point will hang in the middle of the front and the middle of the back, so arrange your towels on you this way. Adjust the two clips at the neck to the size you want the neckline to be, and move the adjacent two clips so your towel is pinned flat, like shown.  You can also add a clip near the wrist at one edge to mark the length you want the poncho to be (which is rectangle width). Take it off and lay it out on a flat surface. Unhook clips from one seam only, but hook the clips back on to one towel if they weren’t on a corner on that towel.  Lay both towels flat like the drawing.  This will let the clips mark your new size. Measure from corners (or towel edges) to clips as shown, or if both of your end clips moved, measure from clip to clip.  The area outside of where you moved the clips shows length that you don’t want on the poncho. Measure from any clips that were moved inward to the farthest clip. You should still be getting rectangles in the general shape of a

towel.

Measuring this way, I get 35 inches on both towels, so I know my earlier 34″ measurement was probably fine.  This is rectangle

length.

If you want, you can fold the towels to your appropriate rectangle length, re-clip, and try it on again. (Clip white to white, blue to blue.)

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Now you’re ready to begin making two rectangles. IF YOU CROCHET, you may get a fairly thick poncho, unless you use skinny yarn.   This drawing shows one way you can do it, but you can get creative and make your rectangles in any direction you like. Make two identical rectangles for the flowy neck pattern like the

top drawing.

IF YOU KNIT, you can cast on either direction here too, the drawings are just ideas.  Cast on the number of stitches you need to get your appropriate inches on the width or length. (For help with getting from number of inches to number of stitches, see this post

.)

To get one like the drawing I put at the top, cast on the width and work up the length like this drawing, doing a cable on one side to get a flowy neckline, and make two identical rectangles.  If instead, you cast on your length, your stitches will be right side up when you wear it, (going up and down).  You can take advantage of this to do flowers or leaves growing upright at the bottom, or whatever you choose.  Whichever way you do it, plan your design carefully to avoid any curling at the bottom. Attach and seam your two pieces like this, and seam following the stars on the drawing above. Make sure to seam on the insides and safety pin it first to check orientation before starting seaming. (Probably sounds silly me saying that, but when I sew I’ll put one piece on backwards every time if I don’t pin and check first, so with no obvious sleeve holes, I know I’d do the same here.)

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Hey, I started!  I realized one of my sweaters already-in-progress is a piece exactly 34 1/2 inches long, so that one is now going to turn into this poncho.  Due to the length it already is, I can’t run a longways cable around the neck, but I think what I’ve done already will make a nice neckline, and now I can maybe do some kind of flower pattern growing upwards from the bottom edge or something.   (It will need some kind of design to prevent the stockinette rolling up at the bottom as you see it doing here).  This design edge is just random made up cables on a garter background with a square of seed stitch at the corners.  When I finish this I will come back and add the completed photo to this post.

.

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WORKING WITHOUT PATTERNS – BUTTER YELLOW CARDIGAN August 15, 2015 by Susan Finished another skinny yarn sweater!  I don’t know how long I’ve been working on this one, but I’m pretty sure at least two Christmases have passed since I started.

I

followed a chart for the texture (reference below).  The idea here was to make an asymmetrical front, just to do something a little different, (though similar to what I did on the purple Knifty Knitter sweater).  I made one side wider than the other so the buttons would go down one side instead of down the middle, and I tried to make a flap that would hang over under the neck.  Its not really staying down now, but I haven’t done blocking yet, so I think I can get that part to work out.  This stitch chart was good for that since it looks nice on both sides. I also made the bottom stripes different on one side of the front.  I would say this didn’t work out fabulously, as the different stripes at the bottom really just look more like a mistake happened.  In the future if I try that again, I’ll probably be sure to include many more stripes (or whatever is different), to make sure it is so obvious that it won’t look as much like a mistake. Also, the fronts don’t seem to line up at the bottom as well, though I’m not sure why – there are the same number of rows on each piece below the stripe. Possibly an error in button placement? When putting on buttons, its best to start at the bottom, and make sure your bottoms line up.  I did that, but still uneven, not sure why.  Not too bothered by it.  Close enough. Will wear it anyway. There’s only one other thing I might do differently, and that’s to not use clear buttons.  (Hey, I was just so excited to find this many buttons that matched each other in my jar!)  Because you can see through the buttons, you can see the buttonholes.  Usually you don’t see buttonholes when something is buttoned, and knit sweater buttonholes can really kind of look like jagged holes.  I may try to do some hand stitching or machine sewing around the edges of the buttonholes to neaten those up since you can see them.  If it bugs me.  It doesn’t bug me enough to go that far yet.

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HOW IT WAS DONE:  I did my self-measuring, knit a swatch to get my gauge and did my stitch math

.

Then started at the hip and worked up on the back piece.  I used decreases on the edges to get my size right for hips, waist and bust, then bound off a few and decreased a couple to make arm holes.  To make a shallow neck hole, bind off neck stitches and attach another yarn to one shoulder to keep working both shoulders at the same time

on two needles.

I started one side, working up from the hip, back and forth on straight needles.  I attached it partway at the hip to allow me to get it exactly the same size as the back piece (as to where decreases for the waist go and where arm holes start.  I left buttonholes in this piece.  Then I made the other front piece the same way, without buttonholes.  Then stitches were picked up at the arm hole and sleeves were worked in the round.  I didn’t bother with shoulder caps on this one, the sleeves are just tubes with decreases on the underarm side. I wanted sleeves narrower at the wrist than my circular needle allowed, so I started working back and forth at a point below the elbow when it started to get too tight to work in the round.    The ends of the sleeves were seamed when finished.  This texture chart was a great one for no curling, so no need for fancy edges.  Work in ends, sew on buttons, and all done! YARN: Colombine 99 183 0 – 50% acrylic/50% nylon.  Size 5 needles STITCH CHARTS FOLLOWED_: The New Knitting Stitch Library. _Lesley Stanfield. Quarto Publishing, 1992._  _Stripes at the hip are chart #13, pg. 28.  The rest of the sweater is chart #41, pg. 36.

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