Wingin' it

A couple of days ago, I wrote about my search for a short sleeved summer sweater with an open stitch pattern. It's one of those things that I thought there must be a bunch of patterns out there on Ravelry. But nothing was quite right. The ones I thought I could adapt were written to start from the bottom up. I don't like the inflexibility of doing it that way. I want to be able to try the thing on and see how it drapes and add more to the length if necessary, so I like to make my sweaters top-down.

For that matter, that whole seaming thing doesn't work for me either. :-) Making the thing in pieces, and then mattress-stitching them together at the end. Forget it! I think it's a matter of how people were taught, but the top-down raglan sleeve increase make sense to me. You cast on a number of stitches, place eight markers, and do regular increases at those markers. Eventually you have enough stitches and the thing is long enough that you put the live stitches for the sleeves on scrap yarn and continue to knit the body of the thing.

I couldn't find exactly what I wanted, so I am winging this one and we'll see how this goes. I cast on 72 stitches after I found a sort of similar pattern (The Loose Knit Cardi from Classic Elite), and am working a six row repeat pattern of :

1. Knit with triple wrapped stitches
2. Knit, picking up one of the wraps and letting the others fall (this creates the drop stitch look)
3. Knit, increasing one at markers (knit f/b)
4. Knit
5. Knit, increasing one at markers (knit f/b)*
6. Knit

After I divide off for the sleeves, I won't do any more increases. This makes it so I am doing the increases at the same side of the marker each time (I think - with the garter stitch, it's not easy to see the increases, which I guess is a good thing). I'm not going to have the same number of stitches as the pattern, but am hoping that once the thing is long enough, there will be enough stitches to have real sleeves. As I said, I'm winging it, so it's an experiment. I've already ripped back a couple of times, as the drop stitch pattern leaves a gap if I want to put a button band or attached I-cord in later. So I'm knitting the first stitch of the triple-wrapped rows with a regular (single wrapped) stitch. It'll go fast enough that if it doesn't work, it's not a big deal, but if it does I'll have a nice sweater for summer.

Edit: 4-3-12. I am increasing on either side of each marker for the second increase after the first two rounds. I should also mention that I K three rows to start before doing the dropped stitch row.