Do you remember the scene in the movie Contact when Jodi Foster is strapped into the seat of the “transport” and “Houston” tells her to check her camera? Then once her “ride” through space starts she is steadfast and diligent about maintaining contact via her camera and voice recorder so she can document everything that happens. Now did you notice, even during the moments when she is being tossed this way and that and she’s trying to hold on for dear life, she never stops talking and recording…
Well let me tell ya…getting this sleeve and snow cuff to work has had me holding on…to my needles (all four sets), my yarn (2 balls, 1 single strand, the other double), my camera (so I can doc-u-ment everything) and all my stitches.
So let’s begin….
I started with 42 stitches on the sleeve, working the pattern accordingly and increasing to 44. On the snow cuff I started with 36 stitches and worked a k2p2 rib for about 10 rows, then changed to stockinette, also increasing on the cuff to 44 stitches. Once I had the same number of stitches on each I started to join. The interesting thing was figuring the rate of increase so every thing would line up and a bit of the cuff would show. This is all done for you in the original pattern but again with my coat there is the different gauge/yarn factor. Which is of course the reason we knit EZ patterns…part of the fun is figuring this all out…
Doesn’t that look like a nice, simple, zen inducing piece of knitting. Are you counting all those needles?
If you take a close look at the picture below…you’ll notice what Meg called a snow cuff on the lighter of the two coats. This wonderful little feature is optional of course but I thought is was so key to the entire coat I couldn’t leave it out.
So as I said above, I knit the snow cuff and the coat sleeve separately and here I’ve started to join them.
I’ve got the size 11 needles in the front, the size 10 needles in the back and I’m knitting the cuff and sleeve stitches together onto the 11s.
Knitting the knit stitches together was easy, just like a 3 needle bind off.
Then I had to purl, so I moved the single strand knit stitch (of the cuff) on to the larger needle, then purled them together. It was much cleaner then trying to purl off the back and front needles are the same time.
Here’s the really fun part…working the sheepfold cable in pattern while knitting the two sets of stitches together.
Again, I moved the stitches to the front needles and cabled accordingly. Elizabeth demos the basic cable and Meg demos the joining/cabling on the DVD. I really can’t imagine knitting this coat without it. Of course I understand the book but seeing it done is so helpful and time saving.
And here we have separation….HOUSTON WE HAVE “ ? ” SEPARATION…(I can’t remember exactly what they say and have I not seen a 100 movies where this phrase is used, AGH!!)
There’s the snow cuff, in place and with no pulling, twisting or tugging..
Isn’t that a thing of beauty? I can’t tell you how excited I am right now. I just had to stop and post this immediately not only to share but because it’s a bit late and I desperately wanted to remember what the hell I just did.
When I said I had the sleeves on needles I did but I’ve ripped them out about 3 times since then…It was worth it. When it works it’s such a great feeling….
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