Knit Simple Winter 2010/11

Meet the "coatigan." It's a piece I designed for Knit Simple's Winter issue which will be on newstands in a few weeks. Rose Callahan took the beautiful photos for this issue. Carla Scott, editor-in-chief, has put together an amazing issue, These are pieces I'd love to knit, if only I had the time!

The sweater coat is something I love to wear. This particular piece has a really simple elegance, while being fun -- to knit and to wear. I especially like the bold ribbing and the easy-to knit i-cord closures. It's knit in one piece from the top down, seamlessly, with raglan sleeves.

This is the first time I've done a top down piece and I had an interesting time doing it. I had to make my brain think "upside down." I guess it's kind of like learning to use your other hand to write. It is a completely new way of thinking about a piece. Usually, when I design bottom-up in pieces, crossback numbers are subtracted from bust numbers, and those numbers become the decreases, evenly divided between the two edges of the front or back. When designing top-down, in the round, the crossback and bust numbers are still critical, but you're adding in the upper arm measurements and increasing in multiples of 8, for each side of the front and back "seams" of the raglan sleeves, and in multiples of 4, for each side of the side "seams." Multiples of 8 and 4, of course are another "something" to think about. The things I absolutely LOVED about this way of knitting and designing is that I could try it on as I knit, and that when I was finished knitting, there were NO SEAMS.
(My submission sketch)

Am I a convert to top-down knitting? Not yet, but I wouldn't say never. Seamless knitting? You bet. In fact, I'm designing another two somethings seamlessly, bottom-up; one with set-in sleeves and the other a yoke sweater -- both to come out sometime in mid- to late January.