modifying a V neck...he knits/she knits KAL
April 07, 2014Thank you for all your ideas with Trinity. Readers suggested that I wear my white jeans with PRIDE..that I lower the V neck, and the beads...most of you nixed them and I tend to agree. We are on the same page people, because that's just what I'm going to.
Lowering the V is really easy. It's not any more complicated than starting the separation earlier, that's really all there is to it. For Trinity, the V separation starts at the end of the armhole shaping plus 3 rows. The armhole shaping for the size small takes 13 rows to complete, plus 3 extra rows as per pattern, equals 16 rows. Knitting at gauge, 16 rows would be about 2 1/2 inches. If you start the v separation and the armhole shaping at the same time you will be lowering the V by 2 1/2 inches, which was good for me. Whenever you have to decrease for the neck and the arm at the same time but at different rates it is best to write it out for each row. This takes just a few minutes and will save you time in the end. For size small, you would re-write the first few rows to read like this:
Row 1: Cast off 3 stitches at the beg, knit to 4 stitches before center stitch, slip 1, knit 1, PSSO, knit 2 and turn. Work each side separately.
Row 2: P2, P2tog, purl to end
Row 3: K2, K2tog, K to last 4 stitches, slip 1, knit 1, PSSO, knit 2
(Continue writing down the row decreases that pertain to your size.)
You would continue to write out all the rows up to when the arm scythe shaping ends. After that, it's just the v neck shaping and not necessary to write that out. But I do want to tweak the final V shaping a bit. I started the V earlier and therefore am making the V longer, so it will look nicer to slow the V shaping down a wee bit at the end, closer to the neck. When I have 4 stitches more on my needle than the end, (11 stitches for a size small, plus 4 stitches equals 15 stitches) I do this for size small: When 15 stitches remain on needle, decrease at the neck every 4th row instead of every other row to create a more gentle slope. And since you have written it all down, it's easy to make the other side exactly the same, just reversing the shaping. When you are making up the sweater and ready for the neckband, you will have to pick up more stitches on both right and left sides of front V slope. I hope this is making sense and I'm not making it sound harder than it actually is.
You can also make the V shorter. Most men's sweaters don't have deep Vs. Head over to this post on Konrad's blog, my KAL buddy, to see how executes a shorter V. Konrad is knitting the same pattern and making his own modifications.
Here's my progress so far. The first picture is the front in progress. You can see the unblocked linen is quite rumply bumply. Blocked linen is a different story. The second picture is the wet blocked back. It dried in a snap and created a soft fluid fabric that is very fine. I can't wait to finish! The color is black, it's a difficult color to photograph well.
Coming up soon I have some fun posts celebrating spring including
Lunch in the Vineyard
and
Spring Bunting
and the Rowan Afghan KAL
Pure Linen Collection by Lisa Richardson
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