playing

Although last week I didn't feel like I got a lot accomplished I realized that I actually had. On Saturday I woke up with a whole plan for a class I'm teaching on Jan.31 (see http://www.downtownknitcollective.ca/dkc_events.html) called Top Down Scatter. I'm doing a workshop on moving the increases around to see what we can make happen between the neck and the Divide Row at the underarm. Within a couple of minutes I had a page of ideas. This is a standard raglan configuration. Pairs of increases worked at 4 points (on either side of the sleeves) for an increase of 8 stitches per Increase Round.

The diagonal shapelines give you a divide line between the sleeve and the Body sections. So what would happen if we moved them around. I've jumped ahead here to some more interesting set-ups.

What if we moved one set of paired increases to sit on the top of each shoulder and left one line of single increases along the sleeve/body raglan divide line. Two stitches are increased on each shoulder (4 sts) and 1 increase on the outside edge of each Front (2 more sts) and 1 increase worked at the outsides of the Back (2 sts). All that adds up to 8 sts added on each Increase Round. It has a different look although the diagonal raglan line is still there.

Let's turn it 90 degrees again.

This time the shapelines with the paired increases are running down the centre of the Front and Back (the front increases straddle the buttonband). I also separated the pair of increases running along the shoulder so it looks like a saddle (think of it with closed increases instead of the YO used here). This is similar to the pair of increases along the shoulder in the blue sample but I separated the pair of increases with 10 sts.This makes a wonderful V in the Front and also in the Back as you can see. The Back V could be filled in when working the collar.

All of these samples start with the same number of stitches and end with the same number at the underarm. With a standard raglan Top Down pattern you can play with where you set up the increases and as long as you increase 8 sts every Increase Round you're golden. Is this fun or what?!

-Deb