I’ve been working on my Zinone top, and as I rather expected, I had a few things to adjust.
First, it became clear that while the size I was working on promised an armscye 8.5in deep, I was not going to get this. I do not want a too tight armhole – both uncomfortable and puts unnecessary strain on the fabric. So I ripped a bunch of the back out and added a bit more of the lace:
The design is that front and back are simply connected when you start going in the round, creating an arm hole from the two. Because it’s wider than your shoulders, this makes a mini sleeve. Generally, this means the armhole formed by the edge can be a bit smaller since it’ll sit up at the narrowest part of the top of your arm, and there’s more give in the body that actually sits where an armscye on a top with set in sleeves would.
To create a nice edge for this “sleeve”, there is a 6 st edge of alternatine knit and slipped purl stitches. It’s making a really lovely edge, but it makes the edge shorter than the main fabric. I think this probably works well for many people, because, as I noted above, this point on the “sleeve” can be a bit narrower. But I often have trouble with tight sleeves and armholes. I have a back up plan if it needs a bit more give.
Next up – pooling. I knew with my yarn that this was going to be a danger. The color pattern of the yarn is circular, by which I mean its ABCCBAABCCBA, as opposed to ABCABCABCABC. This means that as you get to the end of a color change, you start to go back along the same color sequence.
I measured the color lengths before I started knitting in each skein. These are, of course, a bit approximate since the colors fade one to the next. This is the color sequence of the first skein, with the numbers of each letter corresponding roughly to the length of that sequence of orange, mix, pink, mix, orange…
TTTTTTTTAACCCCCCAA TTTTTTTTAACCCCCCAA
While I worked on the lace, I was getting some pooling, but I liked the way it looked because it was shifting quickly enough, came out symmetrical (thanks to the circular color changes and working flat) and the lace breaks it up visually.
But it became clear I was headed for disaster as I moved to stockinette as I used almost exactly one length of the color scheme per row, and based on where I was in the colors when I switched, this is what lay ahead:
TTTTAACCCCCCAATTTT
TTTTAACCCCCCAATTTT
Some pretty serious pooling! Orange on the outsides and bright pink between my shoulder blades. Time to pull out that second skein…
I planned carefully where to begin the next skein, and arrived at the following:
TTTTAACCCCCCAATTTT
TTTTAACCCCCCAATTTT
TAACCCCCAATTTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTAACCCCCAAT
You’ll notice it’s still a bit pinker in the center and more orange on the outside, but it’s a subtle shift and I like how it came out. The eagle-eyed among you may notice that the 3rd and 4th lines have one more T and one less C – this is because the second skein has a slightly different balance of colors.
You will also notice that I’ve started on the front, where the shorter length (about 1/3) has resulted in a really steady mixing of the colors. Pooling will return as a challenge when I join the two fronts, and then join front and back and start working circularly. I will start alternating skeins again at that point.