Lets Knit Readers

Let’s Knit is one of my favourite magazines. As a new feature for the Bulldog Krafts website I will knit up a project each month.  Photographs courtesy of John McLoughlin (www.johnmcloughlin.co.uk)

Issue 43, June 2011

From Green Party to Pool Party

This month I’ve knitted Fern in Super 10 Aqua!  This pretty top knits up really well in Butterfly Super 10 and the bright bold colour is excellent for summer. I think this looks great in Aqua but it is also nice in Sage and Teal so we have all three colours on offer this month.

The two colours on special offer this month are Strawberry and Regal.

 

Size:

8-10

12-14

16-18

20-22

 

Skeins of Yarn Required

2

3

3

4

Lets Knit Fern in Aqua         
 Lets Knit Fern Pattern in Teal
 


Tips & Hints:

Lace knitting is looser than plain stocking stitch. If your tension is normally a bit loose you might want to knit a test square – if you have too few stitches per 10x10cm try using a 4.5mm needle.

When knitting patterns with a regular construction, everyone knows that you need to match the number of rows on the fronts and back. With Fern this is even more important because the seam is going to be on the top of the shoulder and sleeve. When you finish the first piece lay it out and work out how many rows will need to be knitted for the second and third pieces (28, 30, 33, 36 cm). This means you will leave a 20cm opening in the centre for the neck (another lesson I learned through experience!).

I really don’t like sewing so I used ‘pick up and knit’ and knitted piece four directly onto the other pieces. Since this fourth part is rib there are actually more stitches needed than there are rows to pick stitches up from – in my case it work out that I needed 5 stitches from every 4 rows of the slip stitch pattern (see below). This wasn’t actually a difficult task. Because of the slip stitch pattern I was able to pick up two stitches in the row with the psso – one before the slipped stitch and one after.

How did I figure out that I needed 5 stitches for every 4 rows?

After assembling the first three pieces you count the rows around the bottom edge. You already have the number of stitches that you need to pick up from the pattern. I knitted the second size so I needed 156 stitches and I had 124 rows. The difference between these is 32. We want the extra stitches to be evenly distributed around the bottom edge. If you divide 124 by 32 (I round things off to make it easier : 12 / 3 = 4) you get about 4. So, for each four rows you need to pick up one extra stitch!

Video

If you would like to see how to knit the Openwork Slip Stich, I have a video of me knitting it.  Click here to see the video.