Fun Knit

Hard Work Though!

Continuing on from my last post, I have now finished the circular gansey style jumper. Knitted in the round using the ribber circular setting, then using waste yarn knitting off the front via the ribber bed, I continued using the garter carriage with a vertical pattern for the yoke. The whole idea of this type of knit was to minimise the sewing up, usually this takes as long as the knitting of the pieces of a garment. Now copywrite states I am unable to share the actual pattern however, if you look at the post above, you may already have a copy of the Machine Knitting News magazine. The principle of the knit is that the main body is knitted in circular ie stockinet and when you reach the sleeve part you then take off on waste knitting the front of the jersey and continue on the back via the garter carriage using a suitable pattern for a yoke. There are different ways of finishing the neckband however I used cut and sew and ribber or you could use the garter carriage. I prefer polo necks as they are comfortable and warm to wear in our harsh Breton winters. Now to the sleeves, there are knitted circular again, top downward.

The necessary decreasing is worked fully fashioned on the underarm side. The ribs for the jersey are knitted after the main knitting is finished and there are several different ways of doing this and the pattern calls for back and front to be knitted separately using the garter carriage and 2 x 2 rib finished with garter stitch but you could use a normal rib of any type.

The yarn I used was from a massive cone I bought here in Brittany from NOZ a sort of bankrupt stock shop and it was a 3 kilo cone of turqoise blue about 2 ply and it cost me a couple of Euros (so wish I had bought more). Its an acrylic or similar yarn and very soft - just wish again, I could wear natural yarns such as wool but they irritate.

At least my favourite Brother 940 with ribber and KG93 has had a good workout - wonder what the difference between this and the KG95 is - both cast off and on!

My tip for the day is - use your knitting machines regularly and it will pay dividends - mine always take a while to settle, in fact the circular knitting was a nightmare thanks to the fact I had to run the machine in before it settled down and to be honest I was dreading knitting the sleeves as I had such hassles with the body however it was a breeze. Another tip is if you knit the sleeves downward using the jumper seams as is with this pattern always ensure your work is well weighted before you begin the pick up the stitches.