Things have been rather intensely busy here the past couple of weeks (we ended up having our furnace die during the polar vortex and were without heat for several days until we could get a new one, and I’ve had a huge extra workload with workshops, etc, along side that!). I’ve been making progress on my stripey sweater, though – a few rows here, a few rows there, sometimes knitting while my students work on in-class exercises and things. And I’ve actually, as of this morning, finished making the pockets on my sweater. So here are a few notes and details to catch us up!
Last weekend, I tried on the sweater again, to see if I was where I wanted to be before starting the pockets.
I decided that it was looking good, and just one more repeat of the stripe pattern would get me to where I wanted to be.
To make the pockets, I used the same technique as I’ve been using in the babyStripes! sweaters I’ve been making all these years. I knit a flap down from the light blue stripe for each pocket:
I edged each flap so that there was a purled stitch 1-stitch in from each edge:
(This will become relevant in just a bit – there’s a method to my madness!)
Then, when the flaps were finished, I rejoined the yarn at the front and did a 2-stitch i-cord cast on to form the top of the front of the pocket:
After I’d done that, I could simply knit around again, just like I’d been doing before, but each round, I joined the front to the pocket flap.
This is where that purled stitch becomes relevant, because I join the front to the pocket flap by picking up one of the legs of that purl stitch (because it’s a knit-stitch on the back side). This probably makes more sense via video – I’m not 100% sure this embed will work; I think it will just show a still image and you’ll have to click through to Flickr to actual see the video, but here’s how I do this:
Click through to Flickr to play video
And, since I happened to be finishing the pocket while I was at work this morning, I rigged up my phone and took another awkward video of how I *finish* the pocket (basically just knitting the held stitches at the bottom of the pocket flap together with stitches on the front – or more accurately, because of the garter-stripe pattern I was creating, I purled them together):
Click through to Flickr to play video
Now, my plan is to split the front and back, because I want a split-hem that is longer in back. I’ll start the garter-stitch hem almost right away below the pocket on the front, but knit one more stripe repeat on the back before starting that hem. And then, it’ll be time to knit the sleeves!!
whit::knits 