theraineysisters knitting and so much more

I’m not sure this post will make any sense to someone who hasn’t knit or isn’t in the middle of knitting a Falkenberg Ballerina, but here goes anyway. In my update yesterday, I showed the raglan edge between the back and the right sleeve before the stitches were re-activated. Here it is again so that you don’t have to scroll:

Falkenberg has you alternate between reducing one stitch and two stitches through short rows on the raglan. It’s easy to keep track of where you are (and whether you need to be deactivating one stitch or two) because they clump together. If you’ve just deactivated two stitches, for example, you’ll see what looks like three stitches in a clump: the yarnover (which Falkenberg uses instead of a wrap) and the two stitches. Alrighty then. When you are working on the other side of the raglan line, you are “increasing” through short rows. Again, you either add 1 or 2 stitches. The problem is that when you are increasing stitches through short rows you knit past your last increase on your way to do the new one. It’s harder, therefore, to see what you’ve just done and remember if you are supposed to go up by 1 stitch or 2. I’m easily distracted, constantly interrupted, and I’m working with black yarn. (Note: on the sleeve side of the raglan edge, all of my stitches are black so I can’t just use the color change as a guide, which I will be able to do on the raglan side of the right front when I am increasing stitches there.)

My sister Susan came up with a clever way to keep track: she wove a contrast yarn around the stitches before she started the short rows. That made the knitting itself much more mindless. Here’s the method:

First, in addition to increases up the raglan via short rows, you are supposed to be increasing stitches at the other end of the knitting to form the sleeve. Falkenberg makes three stitches out of one to increase two stitches (instead of using short rows). Susan and I both wanted to be able to do a three needle join of the sleeve seam. So, before starting the raglan short rows I did a provisional cast on of all of my sleeve stitches using a contrast yarn. Then I knitted one row from the cuff edge to where the stitches would join the armhole and the raglan. At this point, things looked like this:

Then I wove a contrasting yarn through the raglan stitches.

Then I could start knitting, increasing on both sides. The blue yarn tells me to stop and turn. It’s mindless, and I don’t need to remove the blue yarn as I go.

I’m sure this probably sounds incomprehensible unless you’re knitting one of these; I apologize. As a reward for making it through this painfully boring blog entry, here’s a touch of fall.