KTS: finally / by Katherine Hajer

Today was a red letter day of sorts, because I finally got to the armholes on the double-knitted jacket (photo tomorrow!). The body from the bottom hem to the armholes is 60cm long and 420 stitches wide. Normally when I make a sweater for myself it's somewhere around 200 stitches around and 60cm long in total. It really feels like this thing ought to be done already.

I'm working on one of the fronts now. What this means is a bunch of new things are in play that I've never done in double knitting before:
  • Double knitting worked flat can have an open edge (the two sides don't connect together and are just like any other raw knitted edge), or a closed edge (the two sides connect together, typically with an edge chain stitch). So far I've only had closed edges. Now I have an open edge on the armhole side. The open edge is actually a bit easier to work since the whole point is that you don't do anything to achieve it, but I'll have to be careful not to accidentally close it by twisting the yarns together.
  • The armhole edge has decreases, which I've never done before. I managed to do the double decrease all right, but one of them is slanting the wrong way and will have to be fixed next row.
  • I'm working the front on straight needles while the rest of the jacket hangs off the circular needle I was using. I'm going to have to be careful that doesn't change my tension.
The other thing that happened with the jacket today is that I started my very last skein of matching black yarn. I figure I'll work both of the fronts first and the back last. The back will wind up being in the odd dye lot (so will the sleeves, but that will be less noticeable). I have long hair and usually wear it down, and the change will happen right at the armhole. That's as hard-to-notice as I can manage to make it.