Recently in Black Raglan Category

First off, a big thank you to everyone who commented on my garden! I can't tell you how exciting and motivational it was to get all those comments. I saw all the things I still hadn't done -- and you all showed me all the things I *had* done. Thank you!

So, today is the last day of my vaca. It's been a long week. I'll return to work satisfied with the progress I made in the garden, and well-rested (I "slept in" until almost 7am every day this week -- that's late for me). This morning I woke up to birds chirping so loudly that at first I thought I left the TV on -- it felt like they were right in the bedroom.

I didn't get to make my barbecue or the sangria on Friday, but you can bet I'll be doing it today. It's supposed to be sunny with a high of 70°F (21°C). I couldn't have created a nicer day for my last day of vaca.

It's been a while since I've talked about this design. I've knitted on it quite a bit since I showed you the last pics.

The fit is really good (I'll show you once it gets a little longer) and I love how the stitch pattern waves a bit.

I changed the original stitch pattern I chose for the bottom half. It just wasn't working for me -- it felt a little matronly. I decided it needed something with straight lines rather than waves. Here's a closeup.

I washed and dried the swatch I knitted it to get final measurements. The angora fluffed up a lot and it shrunk a bit in length. Curiosity got the best of me last night and I had to see what happened with the top. It did just what I expected (phew!) and shrunk about 2.5 inches. The softness is incredible -- even softer and squishier than the small swatch.

I want the top to be a little more feminine than it is now, so I'm considering a short, flaired sleeve for a little frill, and maybe a tiny ruffle around the bottom and the neckline.

First, a big thank you to everyone who left a birthday comment! I usually don't announce my birthday on the blog but I've been in such a good place this year that I wanted to share it with you all. Seeing all those comments roll in yesterday was a lot of fun. Thank you!

Once I admitted to myself that this weekend was going to be full of rain and wind (the back yard looked like a pond mid-day -- you couldn't even see the brick path) I decided to take advantage of it. I spent most of the weekend indoors. Pajamas, hair pulled back, no makeup. It was wonderful.

I stopped by Woolbearers at lunch on Friday and I couldn't help but pickup some of their Arcadia DK. It's 80% Cotton 20% Angora and Myra (one of the owners) said the angora softness made its way out as you wore it. They had a nice basic black so I bought enough for a spring/summer top.

Ever since I stopped working on black (red) raglan I've wanted to pick it up again. But, there was a pattern flaw that needed to be worked out, and then I needed to be motivated to work on it.

The flaw is in how the depth of the square neckline interplays with the raglans. I had wanted the raglan seam to come out of the right angle of the neckline. But, given how deep the necklilne is, that meant the sleeves started out quite wide and didn't require many increases to make them wide enough to go around my arm. The body, on the other hand, needed to grow quickly because the wider neckline made for a shorter raglan seam.

I worked on several increase methods before I found one that looked good. The sleeve was increasing at a rate of roughly half that of the body.

Technically speaking, everything worked out ok -- the math worked out. But, the vast difference in increase rates made the body bow down in the center and curve up toward the raglans (seen here). It worked out nicely for the front (built-in short rows!) but the back -- not so much. Backs are not meant to be shaped that way.

After much deliberation I decided to scrap the project. I was spent on it and needed some distance.

When I saw the Arcadia yarn on Friday I knew -- this would be the new black raglan.

I didn't want a plain st st body though. I've been drawn to lacy tops lately, so I swatched a few lace patterns. After trying that out, I realized that I didn't want YOs at the bust area. Even though I do plan to wear a contrasting tank underneath, I wanted the top to be more modest.

the new raglan seam	the bottom lace pattern

Do you see what I changed on the raglans? The raglan comes out of the side of the sqaure neck (not the corners). Once I let myself do that, I could choose where to put it. This allowed me to create a raglan seam that grew similarly on both the sleeve and body. A little difference between the 2 is fine. What I tried to do on the earlier versions of this top was too extreme.

I've also modified the design so the front is deeper than the back. It does mean that the start of the knitting is back-and-forth versus in the round, but I think it's worth it.

Based on my spreadsheet I'm 40% done with the yoke. Length-wise I'm more than halfway done, but because of the longer rows, each row is increasingly longer.

I've finished the body of the raglan

and I'm almost done with one sleeve.

The body is fitting very well! The sleeve is a good length, but I'm still not convinced about the edging. I did 3 rows of garter and a picot bind off. The picots are a little bigger than I envisioned and I'm not sure if I like it yet.

I'm going to sleep on it and decide later.

BTW, see the big U-shaped curve in the full sweater shot? I steamed the top when I finished the short rows and it made quite a difference in the way the stitches look. Cotton really shows every little deviation but with a light steam they even out nicely. Once I'm done and have woven in all the ends I'm going to wash and dry the top. I'm hopeful the rowing out by the shortrows will wash out. I caused them by being overzealous and using a smaller needle for the purl stitches. Turns out I would have been safe using the same needle. Oh well.

I'm also curious to see if the part that was steamed will look any different after being washed. Since cotton has very little memory I'm betting that it won't look different, but I'm still curious enough to perform this little experiment.

Work is going to be jam-packed this week. Will I get this top done before July 1st like I hoped? This is afterall my June stashbuster project. Your guess is as good as mine. I'm really looking forward to wearing this one but I didn't knit a stitch all last week so who knows.

Until then, let me know what you think about the sleeve edge. Too much? Not enough? I thought a little frill would be nice but now I'm not so sure.