Introducing Emily
Rowan Felted Tweed… what’s not to love? Marika got a ball of this luscious purple, Bilberry, at Christmas with an IOU. I was thinking I’d whip her up some pretty fingerless gloves, but she thought what she’d really like was a sweater, and since I love Marika and I love Felted Tweed, I quickly assented. She picked out Kim Hargreaves’s Emily, a design I’d been admiring myself. And I haven’t knit a Kim Hargreaves pattern since I finished Charlotte, found the size medium was enormous on me, and gave it to my mother-in-law. Since then I’ve become a devotee of Elizabeth Zimmermann and other proponents of seamless knitting in the round. I mean, why be bound by the conventions of the garment industry when your materials can take you beyond producing separate bits of shaped fabric and sewing them together, and often let you try your sweater on as you go to see if it fits as you wish? But I don’t loathe seaming. Joining clean stockinet edges is actually sort of fun. So while I could adapt this pattern to work in the round, I decided to knit it just as Kim intended. I haven’t had a good seaming party in a long time, and there’s a jar of a friend’s homemade kahlua in the kitchen that ought to suit the occasion.
And now that I’ve liberated my #7 needle from Amanda’s endless shawl collar, I’ve already sailed through the hem of the front. At this rate I’ll be ready for my seaming party in no time. I noticed a funny thing about the sleeves: Kim has you cast on a terrific number of stitches and work up from the full blousey width to the sleeve cap, then pick up along the cast-on row, decrease, and then knit the cuff down. Why, Kim? I posed the question to two friends yesterday, and they were clever enough to point out that it might affect the structure and stability of the cuff. It made perfect sense to me — who among us hasn’t learned the hard way that there’s a reason designers tell you to bind off stitches at the neckline before picking up for the collar? I have several sweaters, including my Blue Thistle jacket, that want stabilizing with a chain of crochet around the shoulders because I tossed this advice aside and left the stitches live for the collar. But now I think more about it, Kim’s reasoning for the Emily sleeves can’t be the same, or else she’d have you cast on the smaller number of stitches at the top of the cuff and then increase in the next row.
Pardon the unblocked state of this hem, but the sleeve cuff looks basically just like this, as far as I can tell from the picture. The directions are more or less reversed since you’re working it from the top down. So can any of you think of a decent reason not to just cast on the stitches for the cuff, work upward following the body hem instructions, and then increase for the bloused sleeve? Is this pattern an example of Unnecessary English Fiddlyness, or Superior English Construction? After all, this is the garment culture that brings us Savile Row bespoke suits, the Gansey, and a healthy slice of our general knitting heritage, including Elizabeth Zimmermann herself. I know better than to toss such a curious set of instructions aside without forethought. Make your arguments, ladies and gentlemen! It shouldn’t take me more than a week to finish the front and then I’ll have to take the decision.
And yes, that’s a truly colossal pine cone on my dining room table, in case the scale of that first picture was messing with anyone’s head.
Posted: February 1st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Perhaps the cuff was an afterthought so she just wrote the pattern the way she did it?
Perhaps the gathering effect is different if you do it another way?
Perhaps the British are all slightly mad, thus why Benny Hill is amusing but also why their knitting patterns are not always to be followed without examination?
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 1:19 am
I think, like Rodger, that it’s to do with the gathering effect. Casting on a smaller number and increasing immediately doesn’t quite give you the fabric-ruche (or whatever the proper term might be) desired here.
On the other hand, I can attest firsthand to the British being a bit mad (I’m living amongst them right now…), and the gather here is very subtle. I’m not sure it would make enough of a difference to worry about particularly. Remember that she’s a Rowan designer — their patterns are often a bit on the wackadoo side.
Looks great otherwise! This is a pattern I’ve been contemplating for a while.
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 7:20 am
I feel the exact same way about seaming. If it’s stockinette, I find it fun to watch the rows line up nice and neat. I have absolutely nothing helpful to say about the sleeve query; I’m completely dumbfounded by the reason behind it. So in a sense, I’m no help at all. Unless you need someone to unload that homemade kahlua upon; I’m happy to help there.
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
I love that color of Felted Tweed! And, just my 2c here, but the interminable rows of knitting in the round defeat me before I’ve even started… Obviously, there’s just as much knitting if you knit in pieces, but the illusion is still there for me 🙁
And I have no idea why the cuffs are knit after completion of the sleeve!
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
Looking at the fos of Emily on Ravelry – I think you get a slightly puffy/belled effect at the bottom of the sleeve (where the hand comes out.) I think it’s an aesthetic thing. You get some puffy girly looking fabric near the hand, but then the decreased stitches make it so the cuff stays above your wrist and you don’t have a bunch of fabric bagging all over them. I guess you’re asking why not knit the cuff at the lower stitch count first, then increase. Try it – maybe it will look different, or maybe that’s just how she thought to do it. I think you’d get a firmer cuff by picking up and knitting the cuff down – you’d be getting the effect of 2 cast off edges, instead of just one. Probably a bit sturdier, and the yo/decreases for the eyelets might look slightly different if worked from the cuff up. Also, it looks like picking up the stitches gives you a very specific puffed look with the fabric – which mayn’t happen in the exact way were you to cast on the cuff and work up, doing the increases all at once. You probably wouldn’t get the exact same gathered look, like the fabric had been sewn together to gather it, just a hunch.
These ones have especially good sleeve/cuff pictures:
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/chibitora/emily
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/Hinakyo/emily
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 10:03 am
I don’t have any input on the sleeves. Most of my sweaters are yoke style or fairly simple. I mostly just wanted to comment on how much I love the felted tweed. I’ve been buying a skein here and there to make a sweater with them, because the colors are amazing!
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
To make it easier to rip out if the sleeve is the wrong length? That’s my only thought. Otherwise, I’d go with whoever said Rowan patterns can be a bit wackadoo, though lovely.
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
When faced with these questions, I always remember that Elizabeth’s seamless sweater was printed by the magazine in pieces. Sometimes editors just think knitters want something a certain way when it may not be the most logical. That said, it does seem to me that the bind off/pick up is going to add a little stability and “poof” that you won’t get otherwise.
Posted: February 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
i wonder if it’s partially an aesthetic decision given the terrific number of increases (or decreases) involved? as a general rule, i think that it’s easier to make a decrease less noticeable than it is an increase (given increases’ tendency to create tiny holes where they’re placed).
Posted: February 3rd, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Wow! That *is* big! 😉
Posted: February 3rd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
No input on Emily’s mysterious sleeves, but I did want to say how much I like the color you chose. Felted Tweed comes in some lovely shades, and that’s an especially nice one.
Posted: February 7th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Oooh, I love the shade of Felted Tweed that you’re using for this sweater! I’d guess that binding off and picking up might look a little cleaner than casting on the smaller number and increasing drastically, for the same reason heather mentioned.