blocking in session and math

As much as I can't wait to wear it, the seamless yoke sweater definitely requires some washing and blocking. The main body is knit from a big cone of yarn that is slightly oiled to work well on knitting machines. What that translates to is that when its soaked in Eucalan, all the oil washes away, and the yarn literally blooms, expands and becomes even more excellent. A proper photo shoot as soon as its dry to come.

In other knitting news, I did some math and cast on for Elliott's sweater. I had to adjust the large body repeat pattern to work with my gauge and the size needed. What you ask? Well, I need to end up with about a 48 inch diameter sweater to fit mr. e. My gauge from the swatch is mostly 8 stitches/inch, in a few places 8 1/2 stitches/inch. Let's call that 8 stitches to an inch for now. 48 inches times 8 stitches per inch is 384 stitches. I had a 34 stitch design repeat for the main body. I really want to get an equal number of repeats, well, because that would look the best. So 34 stitches (in one repeat) times 11 repeats = 374 (not quite enough - especially if my gauge is sometimes 8 1/2 stitches/inch) 34 times 12 repeats is 408 (too many - that's two inches extra - adds up to a lot of extra knitting!).



So what do I do? I figure out that I can take out four stitches per repeat and still keep the pattern almost exactly the same. The photo above shows which stitches I deleted. That gives me 30 stitches to the repeat. 30 stitches times 13 repeats is 390. Perfect - just 6 stitches over 384.



Here is the adjusted pattern with 30 stitches.

The hem repeat is 20 stitches. 20 stitches times 19 repeats is 380. Unfortunately I have a left over section of 10 stitches. This design is a lot harder to modify in the same way so I worked out a "filler" design for those ten stitches that blends in with the overall design. I'll put that part at the end of the round on the side of the sweater. It won't be that obvious and you can't win them all.



I'm still sorting through a few other options - crew-neck or v-neck?, drop shoulder sleeves or slightly set in sleeves? I figure I've got miles of knitting to go before I have to make these decisions.