Curly Purly-inspired frankenlongies
I went to Webs on Saturday with Good Mr. StringFactory, which was a great treat. (I used to live in Northampton and shopped there often, but I don’t think I’d set foot in the place in almost 2 years.) While we were in the warehouse in the back, we happened upon a small cache of Noro Kureyon in a discontinued colorway (#164) that was marked down to $5.29 a ball. My darling husband-type fellow got me an entire bag of it. Score one for Impending Baby!
Now that I have two soakers under my belt, I decided I wanted to try my hand at a pair of longies. I really like the waistband of the two Curly Purly soakers I knit, so I decided I’d knit that waistband and then sort of wing it from there with a little help from Elizabeth Zimmermann. (The February chapter of Knitter’s Almanac features some instructions for knitting longies.)
The Curly Purly pattern recommends a gauge of 4.5 or 5 sts/inch for the pattern, but the gauge swatch I did in the Noro @ 5 sts/inch (on #7 needles) seemed a bit, um, floppy. I decided I really preferred the (thicker, firmer) stockinette fabric I got at 6.25 sts/inch on #5 needles.
So, I decided on a little pattern mod:
1. I cast on 72 sts for the size small waistband on #3 needles (4 sizes below what was needed to obtain the recommended gauge of 5 sts/inch) and worked the 1×1 ribbing as recommended.
2. I switched to #5 needles (2 sizes below gauge) and worked the *k3 p1 k1 p1 k1 p1* and the *p1 k7* rows according to the pattern instructions.
At this point I’m supposed to switch to the #7 needles I used for the gauge swatch, but I don’t want that floppy gauge swatch fabric. Instead, I decided to figure out how many inches of fabric I need to make up for, and increase accordingly.
72 stitches of stockinette stitch on #7 needles at 5 sts/inch is 14.4″. 72 stitches of stockinette stitch on #5 needles at 6.25 sts/inch is 11.52″. If I don’t switch to size 7 needles to attain the recommended gauge, I need to make up 2.88″ of space. Staying on the size 5 needles at this point means I’m working with stitches that are 0.16″ each, so I’ll need to add 18 stitches. (2.88/0.16=18.)
I’m not sure yet how I’m going to work these increases. I could do a row of *k4 m1* but I’m worried that would be a bit…drastic looking. I could stick one increase at each hip marker for 9 rows. I could also do one increase at each hip marker and one at the mid-butt for 6 rows.
Hmm. I think I’ll sleep on it.
In other news, I went to the flea market with my mom today and found some really pretty (and hefty!) vintage mother-of-pearl buttons:
I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with them yet. I want to use them to embellish some sort of knitted accessory, but what?
