Too much? Nah, Never

One of the many things I dabble in is designing knitting patterns. Most often I do so because I conceived of a desire for a garment and couldn't find an existing pattern that was exactly what I wanted. So I try to make my own.

Ever since I first saw this pattern with the braided cables up the raglan seams, I knew I had to use that idea somewhere.

I really wasn't a fan of the big poncho-like shawl shape of the original pattern, though, so I had to find some other sweater to adorn with cabled raglan seams.

The next bit of inspiration was really what got the ball rolling for my pattern design.  I adore the sleeves on this dress from 1927.  I was a little intimidated by the complex colorwork at first, but I have yet to meet a knitting technique I can't muddle my way through.

As you can probably guess, that dress pattern uses a ridiculously small gauge and tiny needles.  I am a decent knitter, but I am not that patient. I knew if I was going to make colorful sleeves like that I would have to adapt them to a larger gauge.  Also I had no real intent to make my sweater a full tunic length.  The keyhole neckline wasn't really doing it for me either.

So now I had two design elements I really wanted to use, and still no full sweater to attach either to. Then it hit me; why not combine them? I liked the color contrast on black of the dress, why not add contrasting raglan cables as well? Would that be too much, too busy? I thought about it for all of a second or two. Nah, no such thing as too busy or bold with sleeves like that :)

I found some nice yarn at my local craft outlet in black, blue, and purple. It was meant to be. I picked out a nice textured stitch for the body, to give it a similar look to that first inspiration.  I worked the body and sleeves in the round with provisional cast on for nice smooth hems. The colorwork was challenging, but in the good way.  The color cables on the raglans looked fantastic. All was turning out lovely for my sweater, until I reached the neck and realized I had no idea how to finish it.  Oops, kinda forgot about that part.

Well, I found one more bit of inspiration that saved the day.

This lovely cabled jacket uses short rows and grafting to turn the cables around the corner and continue into the collar.  I just so happened to have a bunch of cables converging on the neckline, could I turn them using short rows and add a collar to my creation?

Yes, yes I could. I undid a couple of rows on the front so I could introduce a new cable in the center, and using that and the two from each front raglan I was able to make a collar of the three cables that looked so perfectly integrated into the rest you'd think I planned it from the start.

So there you have it, the haphazard mess that is my design process. I can't wait to see what elements I can throw together next time.

If you'd like to knit one of your own, you can find the pattern here or here :)