Recently in BdF Cabled Yoke Pullover Category

Hi! Last post before we take off, early tomorrow morning. Whee! Je parle un 'tit peu Français et mon mari parle quelque Castilian/Espagnol. Donc, je pense nous serons beaucoup sur notre voyage! Au revoir!

Random thought #1: I didn't do short rows, because I was feeling particularly lazy. I've included it in the pattern, though. Instead, I knit a few more rows after all the shaping. Looks okay, I think. The back of the neck is still high enough.

Random thought #2: Have enough yarn. Calculate how much you need, and add 1-2 more skeins. As I said before, the yoke eats up yarn! I may have to use another dye lot to finish the sleeves. Oh well.

Random thought #3: Don't be limited to using the weight of the yarn called for. I used a heavier worsted, which in turn creates a slightly larger garment, but I may knit another in DK or sportweight. Use the mods to make it your own. I worked hard on those charts, baby.

Random thought #4: Add a higher neck, like the original Craftster poster's, or use a different opening/sleeve/hem treatment. Roll necks are nice, but how about garter stitch, or seed stitch?

Lastly. If you commented or emailed about the pattern before the 15th, I will have sent the pattern to you. If you'd like to have the pattern and chart, please email me, put it in your queue for now and I'll send it once we get back. Apologies--I'm kind of frazzled and in a hurry! Byeee!!!

Congratulations to Kat on the publication of her new book Boho Baby Knits: Groovy Patterns for Cool Tots. Most of you know Kat as the designer of patterns Huckleberry Ascot and Candy Stripes Kerchief (Interweave Knits Holiday 2007), Indigo Ripples Skirt (Interweave Knits Spring 2007), Sweet Rose, Cabaret Capelet, and Poncho Vest (Knitscene Spring 2007), Camisa and Tulips (Knitscene Fall 2006), and Breton Girl and Seaweed Sweater (Knitscene Fall 2007). Yay, Kat! Also featured in Kat's book are projects by fellow knitbloggers Mary-Heather, Marnie, and Julia. See some pictures here.

I'm about halfway on the body, about to start increases for the lower half. But instead of stockinette, here's a picture of the woods outside Plech. You can barely see BFF and his backpack. The sun's streaming through the trees and the ground is dense with leaves. We walk with a "crunch-crunch-crunch"; every now and then the wind blows, leaves fall from their lofty perches, and I stop in my tracks, in wonder.

We are leaving for the south of France and Spain on Wednesday, for about 6-8 weeks. We won't be near any towns, so no internet connection. I'll send my revised pattern and chart out before we leave, and hopefully they'll make sense!

My last post (Tuesday) will be random thoughts about the sweater.

After the jump, my notes on the yoke. Enjoy!

I'm in the process of formatting the instructions and chart for those of you who requested it. I'll send them out early next week!

But first, some shots of my pullover so far. I've picked up the sleeve stitches and placed them on waste yarn, and I've gone ahead with the body, creating a gusset at the underarm and decreasing to the original number of body stitches. I'm putting in a little bit of waist shaping, decreasing to 80% of the body total at the waist, and then increasing back to the original number before doing the rollover cuff.

Let's talk a bit about gussets. Why the need for gussets? Good question. I'm not referring to any solid information here, just my guess. Gussets are wedges that create ease for a better fit. Gussets are created in the arch area of a sock, and in the underarm area of a sweater. It may be a personal preference, but for some things such as form-fitting sweaters I like to have a little wiggle room there. My revision of the pattern will include gussets.

The pattern calls for a ssk as a left-leaning decrease. While I do like ssk, I decided to try an skpo this time. Curious,that's me. TECHknitting has some good posts regarding left-leaning decreases, if you're interested in this. I like my skpo: slip 1 stitch purlwise, knit the next, pass the slipped stitch over the knit stitch.

Here's a tip. When you're working the body, the yoke tends to get in the way, brushing into things. As a result, it starts to shed (Pastaza is very sheddy). Tie the neck with a length of yarn and turn the whole thing inside out, so that the your needles will be on the far side, with the purl side of the stockinette facing out.

In my next post I'll discuss the yoke and how to make it wider.

Past the jump, my lengthy notes on construction.

Have you ever seen a pattern that you instantly fell in love with and had to knit immediately? A pattern that just grabbed you by the shirt and screamed in your face, "KNIT ME"? I found one.

It's Bergère de France's (BdF) #257 Pull Empiècement Rond, a yoke sweater knit in the round with cables at the yoke and rolled cuffs, hem and collar. I found this last week when I was looking for inspiration for my next sweater. It was kismet: I had 7 skeins of Cascade Pastaza, enough for the smallest size of this pattern. Plus, I got gauge! I downloaded the pattern, scanned the French, and put it aside while I finished the top-down cable raglan.

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I had to have my instant gratification, so I played with the picture. I took out the buttons; I even played around with colors: a pale silvery blue, a chestnut brown, and a dark grey. I like the dark grey best; maybe it's a seasonal thing. If things work out, I may knit another one in a finer gauge!

It took me 10 hours to get to this point in knitting. After dinner one night I sat down in front of the laptop and translated the pattern verbatim into English, using Chez Plum's Knitting from the French post and Tricotin's dictionary. (Five years of French in school having gone down the drain.) I rewrote it so I could understand it better. Then I charted the pattern, because I like to have a visual of what I'm knitting. Additional notes were made, and I adjusted the stitch counts and measurements. Then I started to knit; getting gauge immediately was awesome. I didn't look up from my work until BFF shoved a mug of hot chocolate under my nose. "Dude," he said, "you didn't go to bed last night." He also bitched about knitting but I was already tuned out and working on decreases. I was hooked!

In case you want to knit this, fair warning that Pastaza is a spun single and is quite hairy. If you have sensitive skin you may want to consider another yarn. Additionally, these cables suck up yarn, two skeins' worth. And, it's a heavy worsted, so even if you use the required needles, you will end up with a slightly bigger size. This is what I did. Two days later I finished the yoke and got into Ravelry. I remember seeing the pullover on Pamela's blog (here it is in blue), and through Ravelry I found another finished one and a work-in-progress. There is a craftster entry dedicated to the project, as well as another finished pullover in purple. Note the fit on the Craftster poster and Pamela.

I'm going to use this sweater project as a working example of how a knit can be customized to a person's taste. Let's talk about fit. The loose fit on the BdF model was one of the things that made me want to knit the sweater. I like the casualness here; the Craftster model is form-fitting chic, whereas Pamela's is formal but comfortable. Which fit do you prefer? In BdF's picture we're looking at a skinny model in a sweater that's clearly oversized, but fortunately for them, it actually looks good that way, or form-fitting, or comfortable. Pick a fit, it'll work.

For the record, my main bone of contention regarding *any* pattern that's published is fit. Please find the right sized model for the knit, dear knit designers, and indicate what kind of fit you will end up with. There's room for discussion here, but I'll leave it to these two articles to explain fit, both positive and negative: TECHknitting's post on negative and positive ease, and Knitty's article on Fit. The most important thing is to know your measurements, so that what you're knitting will actually fit you. I measure every single time I knit a project, and I always compare a favorite sweater whose fit I like to the specs of a project. Additionally, I like to have a looser fit in general. So it really boils down to the knitter: change the instructions to fit your body!

In my next post I'll discuss sweater construction. If you're interested in knitting this sweater and would like my notes and chart, let me know!

P.S.: We bought a unicycle, secondhand. As if we didn't have enough things to entertain us! BFF has had his eye on unicycles since he saw some neighborhood kids on theirs, and we finally got one. An hour of practice in a meadow, another hour at the train station parking lot, and... we're still learning. It's hard work, who knew!