Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Ruffles: Amy Did Warn Me

I'm quite proud of this, my latest design.

For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted a ruffled border. I'd seen it used very effectively in other designs.

Well, yeah, the effect is amazing, but dear god it's a serious investment of time and yarn.

Using the sleeve edging as an example, here's how you make a ruffle.

There were 34 sts in the cast on edge of the sleeve. Sleeve has been seamed, so you're working in the round. With RS facing, and appropriate dpns, pick up 34 stitches in the selvedge edge of the sleeve. Yes, that's right, one for one. Knit 1 round even. Next round: kfb in every stitch -- doubling the number of stitches on your needles. Work another even round, knitting all those 68 stitches. Work another round of kfbs -- doubling again the number of stitches. Knit another even round. Cast off. You start with 34 sts, and end up with 136 stitches.


Which doesn't sound too bad. And then you start working the border of the body opening. In one piece. 76 sts for the lower back, 20 for the back neck, and 85 on each side. That's 266 sts. You then double that, and double it again, for 1064 sts. No wonder it took me 5 episodes of Rome on DVD and almost a full ball of yarn to finish the edging!

I think it was worth it, though... what d'ya think?

Pattern available from Ravelry and Patternfish.

1 comment:

mmj said...

I love this PINK RUFFLED sweater. It's kind of the anti-Kate sweater, isn't it. Interestingly, I've also found a love of ruffles. So damned easy. I will have to scoot down to the sheep sometime and pick up the pattern.