Proudly Presenting: Japanese Lace Top

I have never really written about this project – hinted at it and made the odd grand announcement that I was about to write about it… and now stage one is miraculously finished!

Voila! The actual color is not as warm as this (see below) – I just enjoyed playing around with the newly discovered facilities on iPhoto.

This top is an amazing fit, and the wool is so very soft – I am just not used to wearing such figure hugging outfits, so it feels a bit odd. I am just not sure if I have done the pattern and the wool any justice… I think the pattern would have actually stood out better knitted up in (a) cotton and (b) in a lighter color and the wool would have just come into its own much better knitted up in a plain stocking stitch. Anyway, it is what it is, stocking stitch in this thin yarn would have been utterly boring…

Isn’t the lace just stunning… And I love the neck detail, how the different lace just grows out of the body.

There is a lot on the web you can find to help you using Japanese knitting patterns, so I will not spend much time re-inventing the wheel here, but these are my thoughts:

•  a lot of the Japanese patterns I have found are very sophisticated (more so than the average stuff in Western patterns) – so they are really worth knitting up
• unfortunately all of the patterns I have found come in one size only (size AU 10), so unless you happen to be that size, you have a bit of a job re-charting… which is tricky since these patterns are very well balanced and thought out, adding an inch here and there where your size might need it could potentially be really tough
• Japanese patterns are concise and written in a very economic style – a short blurb which I don’t understand and then two pages of schematics and graphs which I found more or less straightforward to work out (see example below)
• great care is taken with the garments shape – Japanese patterns seem to use increases/ decreases as well as different needle sizes to achieve this
• Japanese knitting projects are not of the kind that you can knit up while watching a great movie or having an exiting conversation… they do require a lot of attention, following the graph/ charts closely – and in this top for instance the lace pattern required yos and decreases in every row…
• if you want to embark on a Japanese project, find some resources that translate the basic knitting terms, explain the basic charting style, explain the notation for decreases/ increases, … make a photocopy of the pattern and write your ‘translation’ on it

So, I hope nobody gets their knickers in a twist about copyright if I put this first of two pages up to explain how I approached this project…

The first bullet point tells you what yarn and how much is used for this pattern, really irrelevant for me, since I never stick to the recommended yarn, but a good guide. Below that, it lists the required needle sizes (again, you find heaps of info on the web for converting those sizes into US or metric); size 3, 4 and 5 are 3mm, 3.25mm and 3.5mm. Then there is the guide for the size of he finished garment; I am not a genius and my maths is limited – but adding up the figures in the chart made me work out that the bust measurement is 92cm, the finished length would be 55.5cm and from armhole to hem would be 36cm. The gauge is 27st and 33 rows for 10 cm knitted in pattern A and B. So, then there is a whole paragraph that I couldn’t (and probably didn’t need to) figure out, my guess it is a short description of how to go about constructing the top.

Let’s just run through how I approached the back: at the very bottom the figure 121 MUST indicate the number of stitches to cast on, and voila – there you have the symbol for ‘stitch’! Of course I ignored that – I knitted front and back together in the round up to the armhole – I could not find any reason why not… and having to work the pattern in both rows (knit and purl/ right and wrong side), it seemed infinitely easier to just work it in the round to get the decreases (slanting to the right and left) right. Capital letters A, B, C refer to the pattern charts used, the number next to it refers to the needle size used. The arrows up and down indicate the knitting direction (!). I ignored that, I couldn’t see why I wouldn’t just knit in the one direction, starting with 2 rows of garter stitch (which the photo seemed to indicate). Now the fun notation for decreases/ increases: 2 – 4 – 1 means: every 2 rows – decr/incr 4 st – 1 time. Whether it is decr or incr you figure from the chart – the same notation is used for both, I gather. Framing the schematics for the back are a lot of numbers, and having worked out the symbol for ‘stitch’, and assuming that everything followed by ‘c’ refers to cm, I gather that other numbers would refer to ‘row’… and when you consult the carts, you can cross- reference that that is correct. I have cast on the little jacket that goes with it…

Yarn – the yarn is amazing, it’s Smooshy sock weight sumptuously splendid hand dyed yarn in shade Vino Veritas. This top took less than 2 x 100gr skeins. I have got 400 gr left for the wee jacket (also in lace). 

And the pattern – it’s from ‘Let’s Knit’ series, Vol #17.

Cliffhanger Knitting

You all know the feeling – ‘who dunnit?’, ‘what next?’, ‘how on earth?’, ‘can’t wait to see how this will have a happy ending?’. That’s about summing up what this project has been about…

I have started such a project last Saturday. Since I am really keen to explore sleeve heads, once and for all I want to understand the rationale behind a well fitting and nicely knitted top down sleeve head AND I want to explore all of Elizabeth Zimmermann’s patterns  in which she just gives the idea and the principles (and percentages!) to work it out for yourself – her Kangaroo-Pouch Sweater (it’s in her book Knitting without Tears) had been on my list of ‘must knits’ for some time. Added to that – I have accumulated a number of leftover yarns from all my Bendigo Woollen Mills projects, all 8 ply and somehow the colors work together well.

Knitting the hem was an adventure in itself, look at this. As I knitted during Esther’s soccer game, all the mums were wondering why I had knitted the name and date on the inside of the hem… I wonder now myself, this is a great feature to include in a future project (to leave it on the outside!).

For the lining of the hem, I chose a slightly thinner yarn, so it wouldn’t be such a thick hem, and I also chose 1/2 needle size smaller for this section. I worked the lining of the hem back and forth, so I could knit the name and date in. After the name section was completed, I skipped one return (purl) row and knitted it, to achieve the ‘ridge’ for the turn. Then I changed to my actual needle size and started working the body in the round until I completed as many rows as the hem lining was deep. (This might have been a row or so more than the hem lining, since that was knitted in a thinner yarn and a thinner needle, remember?) In the following row, I picked up every second cast on stitch from the hem and knitted it together with every second stitch of that row – bingo!

And the best is yet to come (working the shoulders, steeking the armhole, knitting the sleeve heads and the collar)! Talk about ‘adrenalin rush knitting’!