Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 19:35:37 -0500 (EST) From: Brenda and Larry Clough To: knit@bolis.com Subject: KNIT: Gift -- Crayon Scribble Pullover (long) CRAYON SCRIBBLE PULLOVER Copyright 1997 by Brenda W. Clough. This is a Christmas gift to the Knitlist, and may be reproduced and knit for personal use only. Please contact me for commercial production. This pattern is designed to use up odd balls of worsted yarn. It is a roll-necked pullover with a yoke, about a child's size 10. The design is of crayons standing side by side around the tummy and lower arms, with colored crayon scribbles zig-zagging across the yoke. The body of the sweater, and the sleeves, are knitted flat with intarsia colorwork. Then the pieces are seamed, and joined at the top with an Icelandic-style circular yoke, with the addition of a couple short rows at the back neck to make it fit better. It is as simple an intarsia design as you can well imagine (otherwise it would be impossible to do without a diagram), but you have to feel comfortable working with a good few balls of yarn. I am also rather casual about the number of sts, I am sorry to say, but I've noted the one time when the number you get is important. MATERIALS: #8 needles, a 24 or 36 inch circular, and a 16 inch circular. 6 oz. Main Color worsted weight yarn 3 oz. each of at least 12 other different colors worsted GAUGE: 17 sts and 23 rows = 4 inches over stockinette stitch BEFORE YOU BEGIN: First, sort your colors and decide how they should appear around the body of the sweater. There will be 12 crayons, 6 in front and 6 in back. I arranged mine according to the spectrum, white-yellow-orange-red, etc. Consider whether the Main Color (MC) will contrast well with all the other colors. Try to rig it so that the palest colors do not fall at the center front of the sweater -- kids always drop food down their fronts, and the stain will show up worse on pale colors. Then group your colors into pairs -- white/yellow, orange/red, green/blue, etc. These pairings represent the two colors on each crayon (the waxy bottom and tip, and the paper tube), and can be quite flexible. Black/white would be okay, for instance -- look over a box of real crayons to see what I mean. So now you have six pairs of more-or-less related colors, and I will call them A-1 and A-2, B-1 and B-2, etc. and on up to F-1 and F-2. THE BODY: Cast on 114 sts and knit back and forth in k1Back, p1 rib for 9 rows. On the next round, a WS row, increase 19 sts (every 8 sts or so) for a total of 133 sts. (This is the only number it's important to hit exactly on the nose, because on the next round you will start knitting the 12 crayons, each being 10 sts wide with one dividing stitch.) The first intarsia round is a RS round: K 1 MC, k 10 A-1, k 1 MC, k 10 A-2, k 1 MC, k 10 B-1, k 1 MC, k 10 B-2, k 1 MC, k 10 C-1, k 1 MC, and so on until you've set up all 12 crayons and end with one final MC stitch. Remember to cross over your yarns at every color change, so as not to leave a hole in the work. The simplest way to manage all the colors is to use long strands, Kaffe Fassett style, for the 1 MC stitches, and to lay all the other 12 colors in their order in a low box. This keeps the balls from escaping all over the floor, and whenever you stop knitting you can just drop your work into the box. Or, if you prefer, you can use yarn butterflies to manage the crayon colors. Purl back, keeping to the colors as set up. Knit one more row, and purl back one more time, for a total of 4 rows. Then, on the next knit row, switch the colors within their pairs, like this: K 1 MC, k 10 A-2, k 1 MC, k 10 A-1, k 1 MC, k 10 B-2, k 1 MC, k 10 B-1, etc. You have finished knitting the little stub at the bottom of each crayon, and are now knitting the paper tube that surrounds the shaft. Knit straight up in stockinette, back and forth, until the work is 10 inches long. Now it's time to bring each crayon to a point. On a RS row, reverse all the pairs one more time: K 1 MC, k 10 A-1, k 1 MC, k 10 A-2, etc. The colors have now returned to their original positions. Purl back, and knit across again. On the next purl row, steal one stitch from each side of each crayon and do it in MC, so: P 2 MC, p 8 F-2, p 3 MC, p 8 F-1, etc. on across. Knit back, and purl across again. On the next row, narrow the crayon one more stitch on either side: K 3 MC, k 6 A-1, k 5 MC, k 6 A-2, etc. Every third row the crayon gets narrower and the MC gets wider, until finally there are only two stitches of each crayon left. Work 2 more rows after the final decrease, so that the crayon tip is 15 rows long. Then work one row of solid MC, without any crayon at all. Don't cut the crayon yarn off short, however -- pull a long strand out for each one before you cut, so you can carry the colors up the yoke. Slip the first 5 sts onto a strong thread to hold them, 56 more sts onto another holder, 10 sts onto another thread for the other armhole, 57 sts onto another holder, and the 5 remaining sts onto the first thread to complete the first armhole. Sew up the side seam, from ribbing to the holding thread. THE SLEEVES: I did both sleeves at once on the same needle, to make it easy to match them. Before you begin them, look over your colors again. The crayons on the sleeves don't have to be the same color as the body crayons, or the same as each other. This is the moment to drop any crayon color that you're running out of yarn for. You could also remix your pairings, throw in a couple new colors, etc. Each sleeve will have 3 crayons. Try to avoid having a pale crayon fall at the outside of the elbow, a high-wear and high-dirt area. Cast on 28 sts and rib, in K1Back P1 ribbing, for 9 rows. Increase 6 sts on the next row, a WS row, for a total of 34. On the next row, begin the bottoms of the crayons: k 1 MC, k 10 A-1, k 1 MC, k 10 A-2, k 1 MC, k 10 B-1, k 1 MC . Work 4 rows in stockinette, and then switch the pairs: k 1 MC, k 10 A-2, k 1 MC, k 10 A-1, k 1 MC, k 10 B-2. Work until the sleeve is 10 1/2 inches long, and then sharpen the crayons the same as on the body of the sweater. AT THE SAME TIME, increase the sleeve on both edges 1 st every 4 rows or so, with MC. If you begin this after the base of the crayon is done, by the time you get to the sharpened tip of the crayons the sleeve should be 59 sts wide, more or less. Slide the sleeve onto a holder. Sew the seam. Slip the 5 sts to either side of the sleeve seam onto their own separate holder, for the underarm. JOIN THE SLEEVES TO BODY: Look at the body -- this is the time to make the final decision about which side is front. Begin at the back right shoulder by sliding the 57 (or 56) back stitches onto the circular needle. Then add the 49 sts from one of the sleeves. Continue with the 56 (or 57) front stitches, and conclude with the 49 sts from the other sleeve, for a total of 211 sts. Place a marker, and knit around. Every time you come to a crayon tip, k one st in the crayon color. (The crayon tip is 2 sts wide, I know -- it doesn't matter which of the 2 sts you decide to lead the color up from.) On the next round, every time you come to a crayon color, use it to knit the stitch previous to the first one. This will make each crayon color march diagonally uphill and to the right, to form the scribble. Particularly at the sleeve-body joins, the distance between the scribbles will not be the same. Nobody will care. Knit 9 rounds total from the sleeve-body join. Then on the next round K 6, K 2 tog, on around for a total of 182 sts. If a decrease falls at any of the crayon color sts, shift it to the right or left, so the intarsia stays nice and clear. (This tends to confuse the stitch count a little, but the numbers are not too important at this point.) Knit 8 more rounds. Then reverse the crayon scribbles' direction, by knitting each color in the st after the previous one. The scribbles will now march diagonally uphill and to the left. Knit 3 more rounds. Then k 6, k 2tog on around -- 163 sts. Knit 6 more rounds, and then k 3, k 2 tog to get 131 sts. Knit one more round, and then reverse the scribbles' direction the final time. Knit 4 more rounds, then k 3 k 2 tog -- 104 sts. Along about here you'll be more comfortable switching to the shorter circular needle. Knit 4 more rounds, then k 1, k 2 tog, for 70 sts. Knit 4 more rounds. Then lay the sweater out flat, and mark the center front 16 sts by threading a piece of odd yarn around the needle at the right places. Use something different from the round marker, which you will still need. SHORT ROW NECK SHAPING: Knit around to the stitch before the front marker, carrying all the crayon colors along as before. Turn, wrapping the yarn around the stitch so as not to leave a hole, and purl back. Purl until you get to 8 sts before the other front marker. Wrap and turn, and knit back. Stop 8 sts before the marker, turn and purl back. Stop 8 sts before the previous wrap, and turn and knit back. Knit all the way around to the round marker with MC only, removing the two front markers and dropping the intarsia colors as you go. If you pick up and knit each wrap along with its stitch, there won't be a horizontal bar at the turn place. NECK FINISH: Rib in k1, p1 rib for 4 rounds with MC. Then knit in stockinette for 10 rounds to form the roll collar. Bind off loosely. Weave in all the loose intarsia ends. Weave together the 10 sts at each underarm. REFINEMENTS AND ADJUSTMENTS: To make the sweater a size or two smaller, I'd drop sts from each crayon repeat, so that each one is only 9 or even 7 sts wide. You'd want to shorten the body and sleeves in proportion, too, and omit plain rounds from the yoke. A bigger jump might involve omitting a crayon or two entirely. The simplest way to get the size you want is to use another garment that fits the intended wearer, and keep on comparing your knitting to it. I thought about making the scribbles on the yoke more random, too -- no reason why the lines couldn't cross and curve and swoop around. Or, for a simpler knit, you could just have the lines go straight up to the neckline. A really clever sweater might have the child's name written in cursive in front -- difficult! And only do-able if the child has a short snappy name. You could also do the ribbings with a #6 needle. I didn't think of this until the sweater was almost finished! Copyright 1997 by Brenda W. Clough. -- author of HOW LIKE A GOD, a science fiction novel from Tor Books --- This pattern downloaded from Wool Works: the online knitting compendium http://www.woolworks.org/