Autumn Song on October 11

First, hop on over to Flint Knits and admire the Autumn Aran Sock Pamela is knitting using the oak leaf pattern from Autumn Song.

My Autumn Song front and back are finished to the point where it's time to sew the sleeves in and knit circular style up the neck.

I washed, blocked, measured, re-measured, calculated, sketched, made a few decisions, and have a tentative plan for knitting the sleeves.

The sleeves require an even number of oak leaves. Eight, as the patterns calls for, will make the sleeves too long. Six may make the sleeves too short. I'm going to do a provisional cast on instead of a cuff and save the cuff until last to make sure the sleeves are a good length for me. The cuffs will be longer than the pattern shows, but the lacy ribbing is pretty, so I don't care.

One more decision to make before I can start knitting. The filler pattern is a 26 stitch lace pattern with single and double decreases. Are they crazy? Right away on the first row there are only nine stitches of the filler pattern on each side of the underarm seam. If I just follow the chart the stitch count is going to be off and the pattern is going to look wonky.

I'm capable of calculating yarn overs and decreases and using the given filler pattern. But is it worth the effort? I may decide to try it or I may use seed stitch until I have enough stitches to do the complete lace pattern.

I don't think seed stitch will make the sweater any less attractive and it will make the knitting less challenging but more enjoyable.

I need to do some more sketching and calculating before I decide.


Pattern: Herbstlied (Autumn Song) from New Style of Heirloom Knitting.

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, 100% wool.

Color: Firecracker heather

Needles: Options #5.

Gauge: 5.5 stitches/inch, 8.4 rows/inch in pattern

Click on the label Herbstlied at the end of this post to see all posts on this blog mentioning Herbstlied.