Working It Out As I Go

Ah, that blue tweedy 12ply yarn. I’ve looked through all my pattern books and magazines. I’ve compared gauges and yarn quantities. I’ve swatched. Nothing offered itself as the right pattern for this yarn.

The yarn looked perfect for this…


Sunrise Circle Jacket

… except it was the wrong weight. The swatch confirmed it.

But then I found these buttons:

And they looked so great with the swatch I knew it was worth the effort to convert the pattern. So lots of maths followed. And after a lot of poking at my calculator and nutting things out, I realised something incredibly simple: an angle doesn’t change when a thicker or thinner yarn is used.

This pattern is a series of blunt-ended wedges, rectangles, and one curved bit knit from the middle out. For the wedges, all I had to do was calculate from my swatch what the correct number of starting stitches was, then increase (or decrease) by the same ratio the pattern used (say, 2 st every 16 rows) until I reached the correct number of ending stitches, making sure the piece is the right length in cm.

Rectangles are the same, except I knit until I reach the correct length in cm rather than rows. Since most patterns do this anyway, there was no math involved.

To test this theory, I knit up the back:

Which turned out near perfect, except for the waist bit, which turned out a bit short because I accidentally followed the directions for the size smaller than the one I was supposed to be following.

Will I rip it back? No way. I’ll cut it, add a few rows, then graft it back together. Grafting may be the pits, but ripping back several hours work is the Pit of Eternal Stench.

Now, the circular bit. As far as I can see, it should be just as simple. Because it begins at the centre of the ‘circle’ and grows outward, all I have to do is follow the directions and knit until the radius reaches the correct width in cm (and the raglan bit of the sleeve part reduces to nothing, but that’s a little harder for anyone who hasn’t got the pattern on hand to visualise).

Of course, I may end up regretting making bold claims that this pattern conversion is simple and easy. You can all laugh at me if my overconfidence gets me into trouble. But even if it all falls into a stinky mess, I can say I’ve already learned something wonderful, that I wish I’d got around to investigating alot sooner.

I taught myself how to spit-splice yarn. What a revelation!

All these 12ply garments I’ve been knitting, cursing as I knit in ends only to have them work their way out again, and all along I could have been splicing. If I wasn’t so full of joy and amazement I’d be smacking my brow for taking so long to try this one out.

7 thoughts on “Working It Out As I Go

  1. I was over the moon when I learned spit splicing, too. What a relief not to have all thise ends to weave in!

  2. Kudos to you for not letting the pattern be the boss of you. All hail the intrepid knitter!

  3. Wow, you arevery couragous, I havent had the nerve yet to do something like this. The sunrise circle jacket is worth it though, one of my friends made it and its really nice

  4. This is looking great. I’ve admired that pattern for a while and your swatch and buttons are beautiful together. I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck!

  5. The back looks great – very impressed with the yarn substitution effort and the buttons are magic. It’s worth it just for the buttons!! I really want that pattern now…

  6. Spit slicing, you are my hero! Isn’t it useful!
    I’ll be very interested to see how your sunrise circle turns out. I sometimes wing things the way you are and sometimes they work out wonderfully and other times I decide the yarn wants to be used for something else 😉 I recognise those buttons I believe…
    Action on the house! Woo hoo!

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