Seam-free, but not problem-free

[pensnest]

I'm being a bit ambitious and, at the same time, trying to make things easy on myself, but I'm a bit terrified of actually getting started, so am hoping for some advice.



My daughter has asked me to knit her a longish jacket with long sleeves. That's okay, I've knitted jacket-sized garments before, although my usual style is something from the Kaffe Fassett oeuvre, ie lots and lots of colours, no shape.

I happened to see, at my local Stitch & Bitch, someone knitting a garment from the top down and with NO SEAMS. I fell in love, because I really do not like sewing my knitting together. And am not very good at it. Also, top-down seems so *sensible*.

Now, the garment under construction is a mere shrug, with ribbed collar, garter stitch edging, and tiny sleeves done in rib. But I am so enchanted with the idea of a garment with NO SEAMS that I'm going to have a go at doing this and making it longer. In theory, this should work perfectly well. Ahaha.

My splendid S&B lady wrote out the instructions for me, and I have been working on them to see how they develop. I've done some swatches—and my beautiful yarn knits up like a dream—and figure that 5mm needles will do nicely as they give me 18sts across and 24 rows in 10 cm. Which is, all else aside, quite easy to calculate with.

Basically, one casts on the collar and knits a few rows, then there is a set-up row in which you, well, set up. It's a wrong side row. In the pattern given to me, it's as follows:

sl 1, k3, p 14 [front], stitchmarker, p1, stitchmarker, p14 [sleeve], stitchmarker, p1, stitchmarker, p 37 [back] , stitchmarker, p1, stitchmarker, p14 [sleeve], stitchmarker p1 stitchmarker, p14, k4 [front]

Then for every knit row, you YO, k1, YO at every stitchmarker, thus increasing by eight on every knit row, and achieving a very pretty line down the sides of the raglan for the sleeves. Every purl row is just purl everywhere except for the garter stitch edgings to the front.

So. First question: the shrug is designed simply to join edges at the front, and I want there to be a buttonhole band. I assume the garter stitch edging is good for a buttonhole band—are there likely to be any problems with that? Should I perhaps make it wider? Also, for a central line of buttons, do I need the front side with the holes in to be slightly wider than the side which will have the buttons on? I don't think so, but I keep trying to visualise it and cannot decide.

Second question. The +8 per knit row increase continues until the sleeves are 72 stitches. My calculations lead me to believe that this'll be about right in terms of length and width to fit my daughter, though I'm still waiting for her to send me a few more measurements than I took last time I saw her. However, at this point, the back is rather too loose. Obviously for a little shrug this is fine, because it's not going much further than the bottom of the sleeves in any case, but for a long-line jacket, I'd rather be looking to fit it a bit more closely.

I need to maintain the +1 on either side of the raglan 'seam', otherwise it will look sad, and obviously I need to make sure the collar is of a reasonable size, but what would be the best approach for making sure the back does not go too wide? I could, perhaps, put a cabled design in the middle of the back (because, hey, why should life be simple?). In fact, when we looked on Ravelry for possible designs there was one with pretty cabled patterns that caught her eye. I've knitted up the cable pattern along with my swatches, and it certainly pinches things in quite a bit, and would be more interesting than plain stocking stitch, as well as fraught with peril. I foresee many lifelines and much swearing. But is there a better way?

I am thinking also of doing the cabling on the sleeves as a pretty way of getting them to a snugger fit over the forearms. I will have to test and measure and stuff, but I think I can deal with that. Am I likely to be Quite Wrong? Obviously there will have to be some decreasing of row length as well. More calculation. Joy.

Um. No doubt there is much about this project that I have Not Foreseen. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be delighted to have some advance warning!

Comments

[indeliblesasha]

Are you a member of ravelry? If so, I highly suggest http://www.ravelry.com/groups/contiguous as a good place to find people who have worked the seamless mods, and probably addressed your other issues too. :) I'm new to sweaters myself so I don't have any personal knowledge to share, but that seems like a good group to find some. :)

[pensnest]

I am on Ravelry, but don't know my way around very well - this is an excellent link. Thank you!

[cme]

I haven't (yet) done a top-down sweater myself, so I am speaking from a theoretical understanding here.

That said, for the button band:

• you could knit circularly, steek, and pick up for a band
  
• you could knit back and forth and pick up for a band
  
• you could knit back and forth with an included band, like I think you're describing here- where the "band" is more of a detailing thing than a structural thing
  
• you could knit and make an included hem (aka facing) to reinforce and at structure to the band
  

My understanding with cardigans is that picking up for the band gives it structure enough to support the weight of the buttons better and hang better when open. This could be achieved with the hem, too. Whether you think you need this probably depends on the size and weight of the buttons you want to use.

If you decide to do the included band with no extra structural components, I would personally decide how wide to make it by picking out what size of button to use and making the band wide enough to look pleasing with the buttons.

For the back, it sounds like you're concerned about it being too large below the shoulderblade/armhole area? If that's the case, you could:

• do paired decreases near the center back, as a design detail
  
• do paired decreases in the "princess seam" or "waist dart" areas- midway between the center back and the sideline (this is a little hard to describe if you aren't too familiar with garment design, but there's a good picture of it in Stephanie Japel's Spicy Fitted V-Neck Tee)
  
• do decreases at the sideline, where you'd do them on a seamed sweater
  

I like the cable motif idea though. :)

I constructed a Ravelry search for adult-sized women's cardigans, top-down construction, that are available for free. If you want to see what others have done, this might be useful to you?
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/search#craft=knitting&view=captioned_thumbs&availability=free&fit=adult%2Bfemale&pa=top-down&sort=best&pc=cardigan

I'd love to see pictures (either complete or progress photos)!

[pensnest]

Awesome, lots of useful advice! Thank you for the search link, in particular.