Purlwise

Design Notes

Our final task for each garment is to add it to our "design note" book and let Jean review it along with our  garment.

Here's my entry for the vest.

Besides reproducing a 1/4 scale drawing of the pattern we also note gauge, needle size, measurements and add a photo.

I followed the format found in many Japanese knitting books. Essentially, most of the details needed to knit the garment can be found within the chart. That includes measurements, stitch/row counts and decrease notations.

Japanese books always note decreases in the same format: rows - stitches - times. Read these notations from bottom to top as if knitting the garment. For example here are my decreases for the shoulder slope.
2-4-1
2-3-1
2-4-3 <- start here ( reads - every two rows, decrease 4 sts, three times)

This "design note" book and 1/4 scale ruler was supplied by Jean and came from Japan.  Each page is a 1/4 scale grid with every square representing 1cm. We draw our chart using a special 1/4 scale ruler which also includes .5cm marks as well as 1cm marks.

I don't think this handy booklet is available in the US.

By the way, I enjoy working in the metric system and can't understand why the US doesn't dump the Imperial system.

Oh my

I'm trying not to feel too overwhelmed.

Two more class sessions = tons more homework.

Full of enthusiasm, I picked up the round neck pullover on Monday evening.

Once again this darn panda cotton made a relatively simple task turn into an ordeal. Its tiny plies easily unravel and then mysteriously squish together further down the piece of yarn I used to crochet the sleeve to the body. Yes, I should have used a different yarn for seaming but, heck, I want to use up the left overs.

Speaking of left overs. I have seven more skeins of this panda cotton!

I'm a bit puzzled as to how this happened. I expected one or two extra skeins, but seven? I used The Knitter's Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements  when buying the yarn so, either I inadvertently looked at the wrong figure in the pamphlet or their estimates are much too generous. Whether or not I made a mistake, I still think their charts are very generous. I do recall having two extra skeins left over after finishing my raglan.

After Monday the homework pace slowed down.

I did manage to sort through my notes and gather all my calculations on the raglan sweater so that I can start working on my "design notes" booklet. This is a thin paper notebook that was provided on the first day of class and will be used to jot down the final details of each project. Now that we've finished a couple of garments, Jean has asked us to turn in our first two projects along with our design notes. I'll post a picture of this "design notes" notebook when I get the first entry finished.

Although I had more company this weekend I managed to get one of the sleeve caps of the v-neck sweater done. I know it looks odd but keep in mind that it's not blocked yet.

Taking the rest of the day off

I need to forgo writing today.

Just returned from another two-day Nihon Vogue class session and my in-laws are in town.

Knitting against the clock

Only five days left before our next session.

On the knitting front I have about 2/3 of the other sleeve piece to finish. These twisted stitches are tough on the old fingers.

As far as the seam stitch goes I decide to have one knit stitch on each side. Hopefully this will be ok with sensei.

Yet to do:
- grids on v-neck pattern pieces
- block top-down raglan
- undo side seams of vest to leave ribbing seam undone

Look what finally arrived in the mail this weekend. Toshiyuki Shimada's latest book. It's packed with so many enticing garments one hardly knows where to start. I was planning to  do a review but a fellow ravelry knitter already posted this excellent review on her blog.

One word of caution though. I found out yesterday, via this ravelry post that the first edition is being recalled by the publisher and a second edition is being printed now. In case you got the first edition, here's the errata. Download the pdf files to find corrected charts.

Also via the same raverly post someone mentioned that The Needle Arts Book Shop is now carrying Japanese books.

Well, I've got to get back to that homework now.