Monday, September 12, 2011

Sandridge: the Knitty Gritty of Raglan Alterations

Sandridge was originally designed and published as a man's zip jacket. Now, men have muscles and bigger shoulders than women, so a raglan depth that works for a man doesn't usually work on a woman of similar chest (bust) size. In a post from almost a year ago I casually mentioned that it would be a good idea to reduce the raglan depth when knitting a woman's version, but I didn't get into the down and dirty details. Here they are now as they apply to the size 36 I'm making for myself.
The pattern as written for a man says to knit until there are 58 sts in the sleeves, then to stop increasing in the sleeves, but continue to do 2 more increase rows in the body. That means that for this size, there are 4 rows more (counting the purl rows) to work after the sleeve increases are complete. However, I'm happy with the raglan depth without those 4 extra rows, so I've decided to divide for the lower body right there. But, I need to make some other adjustments for this to work. First, I read ahead to determine how many stitches I'm supposed to end up with after the divide--162. If I stop where I am, I will have only 152-- 10 stitches shy of the goal. I'm going to need to cast on some stitches at the underams to make up the difference. But, another crucial piece of info is that for this size (not all sizes) the raglan seam stitches are knitted together at the underams to create an underarm stitch. If I make the raglan shorter and cast on stitches, then those raglan stitches won't be knitted together to count as a total of 2 stitches; they'll simply be added to the body stitches for a total of 4 stitches. Finally, I can still work body increases on the dividing row.
Where does all this get me?
I need to make up 10 stitches. 4 will come from the raglans, 4 will come from the regular kfb body increases, and I'll need to cast on only 1 stitch at each underarm. Simple eh?
I did all these calculations yesterday morning. Here's where I am now.

 Hope to finish the body today.