Okay, here's where I use this blog for a purely selfish purpose, though maybe you'll get something out of it, too. I'm recording all the construction details of my current knitting project, a purple sweater for DD made from KnitPicks' Shine Sport in Violet. I have 20 balls of this, but I hope to need only 5 or 6 for the sweater. All this note-taking is in case I like the result well enough to make another one like it later, perhaps for DS or a friend.
I'm using construction techniques based on Jacqueline Fee's book, The Sweater Workshop. I love this book. I have never knitted in the same way since reading it and working the sweater sampler. I'm much more keen on designing my own stuff now, or altering patterns as needed to be more what I want to knit. I recommend it highly.
So, for a sweater somewhere around size 4T or 5T (growing room for DD), I cast on 135 stitches for the lower edge of the sweater on size 5 24" circular needles using a long-tail cast on (my gauge is 5.75 st/in in stockinette). I knit in the round in garter (1st round purl, 2nd round knit, etc.) until I had four garter ridges, ending with a knit round. Then I switched to stockinette. In the first stockinette round (that's the second knit round in a row), I increased 15 stitches, spaced evenly around, to keep the garter from flaring or folding up too much. Then I worked until the length seemed right: about 8.25 inches, to get to within one inch of DD's armpits with some length to grow into. This much took exactly two balls of yarn. I left the belly part of the sweater on a cable to come back to.
I cast on 34 stitches for the sleeve and worked in garter as for the lower edge. (I tried to do this magic-loop style, but found it a pain, so ended up working the cast-on and garter on DPNs and then transferring to magic loop to continue.) In the first stockinette round, I increased 4 stitches, 2 one stitch in from the underarm line and 2 more evenly spaced around the wrist. Then I knit in stockinette, increasing 2 stitches in every 4th round, each increase 1 stitch in from the underarm line. When I had 60 stitches, I knit straight until the sleeve seemed long enough -- 10 inches, though this may need to be rolled up until DD grows a bit.
I unknit 6 stitches from the underarm "seamline" of each sleeve and then placed 12 stitches at each underarm on a piece of scrap yarn. I also unknit 6 stitches at one seamline of the body and then placed 12 stitches at each side of the body on scrap yarn. Then I worked a joining round, working all the non-scrap-yarn-held stitches of both sleeves and the body into one big round. On the next round, I placed markers at each joining point, using a different-colored marker at the right front join to remind me of the beginning of each round. I knit for a total of seven rounds (counting joining round and marker-placing round) with no increasing or decreasing.
Then I started the raglan decreases: as I approached each marker, I would knit to the last 2 stitches before the marker, k2tog, slip marker, k1, and SSK. I did this every other round, with alternate rounds knit straight around. I realized in hindsight that I should have worked 8 rows, decreasing only every fourth row, before starting the every-other-row decreases. As a result, the armholes are more fitted than I intended.
When I had 46 stitches between markers in the front, I started the short front placket as follows: Place a yarn marker at the center front. On a decreasing row, work all four raglan decreases and knit until there are 3 stitches left before the yarn marker. Turn so the inside of the sweater is facing you. Cast 6 new stitches onto the left needle using a cable cast-on. Purl all the way around on the inside, back to 3 stitches beyond the yarn marker, which can now be removed. Turn so the outside is facing you. *Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in back. P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, then work a raglan decrease round up to the last six stitches (the placket). For those stitches, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Turn so the inside is facing. Slip one stitch as if to purl with yarn in front. K1, P1, K1, P1, K1. Purl the rest of the way around to the last six stitches, then K1, P1, K1, P1, K1, P1. Repeat from * for an inch and a half or so, then work a buttonhole: as established, except at the beginning of an outside row, Sl1, P1, K1, yo, K2tog, P1, and proceed. This makes a small buttonhole, and you'll need a button that's round or nearly so to avoid catching on the edges. After the buttonhole, proceed as established with raglan shaping until 20 stitches remain between markers on each arm, stopping at the beginning of an outside-facing-you row.
Now start the neck shaping: Work the six placket stitches as usual and slip them onto a DPN or stitch holder. Work an outside row as established above up to the last six stitches. Slip those, unworked, onto another DPN or stitch holder. Turn and purl back around. (There's no catch-up row in this description, but you could work one with a separate piece of yarn to make the placket come out exactly even.) Continue with the raglan decreases and placket as established above, but start each outside row with (Slip 1 as if to purl with yarn in back, K2tog) and end each outside row with (SSK, K1) on the last three stitches. Work 8 rows this way, then cut the yarn and secure the end.
I used a K1, P1 rib for the neck. I would have done it on smaller needles, but I didn't have any handy, so I stayed on the 5s. Here's how it goes: Join in a new piece of yarn. Knit the 6 stitches from the DPN on the right front placket onto a size-5 circular needle, whatever size you like. Knit into the slanting neck shaping (I picked up 7 or 8 stitches), then knit the live stitches from the back of the neck to the circ. Knit into the left neck shaping and knit the live stitches from the left placket. Now you have one complete outside row knitted. Turn. Now count the total stitches you have. You're going to decrease some stitches on this next row, and you want the final count to be an odd number of stitches so that there's a knit stitch (looking from the outside) next to each placket. To accomplish this, I knit the inside row of the placket as established, then (P1, K1) 4 times, P2tog, *(K1, P1) 4 times, K1, P2tog, repeat from * around to before end placket stitches. As you approach the placket stitches, if you don't find your seventh-to-last stitch will be a purl, fudge one more P2tog in there to make sure it is. Turn. Work plackets with K1, P1 ribbing in between (knit the knits, purl the purls) for 1 inch, working one more buttonhole on an outside row after the first 3 or 4 rows. Bind off loosely in pattern.
Put the twelve underarm stitches on each side that you held on scrap yarn (actually 12 from each sleeve and 12 from each side of the body) on 4 DPNs, size 5 or smaller. Use kitchener stitch (explained and illustrated nicely here) to graft them together. You may need to darn around the edges of the grafting to avoid holes, but if you worked as I did, you have plenty of ends with which to accomplish this! Weave in the rest of the ends, tack down the bottom edge of the left placket to the inside of the sweater, and sew buttons (after checking they fit well!) behind the two buttonholes.
Voila! If you skipped the same 8 rows I did, you likely now have a sweater that fits a size 4T-or-so kid like a glove for about three weeks. :)
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