Jeans friday

Finally there s a store in my country where one can buy yarns from natural fibers. OK, the selection is rather limited, but then again, at least one can touch Malabrigo, or see Manos in person. Knowing about me from the knitting club, the owner aporoched me if I would teach some classes there... Can I say no? For the first while we agreed that she will compensate me with yarns... I can always have more yarn right? I think the first time I was in teh shop i fell in love with the light blue of the Sublime Organic Merino yarn. And the jeans blue. And the light green. So much I couldn't decide. Then I started to knit socks from some noro silk garden with similar colors, then it hit me. STRIPES!!! And then I knew at once what I want. I only had to design how the whole thing should come toogetehr. Very simple construction, top down with stripes of equal width, but then throwing it toward the light blue with wide ribbing at the waist, and the buttonband, and extra wide cuff at the sleeves.

I wanted something that is sporty. Something to throw over a jeans or a T shirt. Or a white collared shirt. I also wanted it to be warm and soft and feminine. Warmth and softness comes from the yarn (Oh my god, if you ever touched soft. Wool.). Sportines from the stripes and the top down craglan construction. For feminity I added slight waist shaping.

Making the underarm section I used a trick I made up when got annoyed knitting my tangled yoke and amelia and trying to graft the underarm. As far as I know both upward knitted and top down raglan and yoke sweaters have you cast on a few stitches for the underarms when joining the body and the same number when doing the sleeves. And then graft these stitches. Sure I know how to kitchener. But then again I work in a place when simplification is the new mantra now. Why should I make myself extra work??? As i mention this is a top down construction so here how I've done it. When I was at the point of joining the body putting the sleeves on a piece of scrap yarn, and having to cast on the extra stitches, I used the end of scap yarn and casted on the extra stitches with turkis provisional cast on (basicly wrapping the yarn around the needles, to wich I held the extra piece of yarn. Then I knitted the body.

When it came to knitting the sleeves I simply picked up the stitches from the scrap yarn, including the ones I provisionally casted on before. If you find the hole between the sleeve stitches, and the underarm stitches are too big, you can pick up an extra stitch on both side.

Voila, I have perfect underarms, no grafting, only two ends to thighten and weave in.

The top down seamless construction gives you perfectly matching stripes.

For a slightly modern touch I added extra wide cuffs.

Now I only have to write up the pattern... should I?

(Pictures, again shot by my son).