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Coze: Easy Knit Vest Pattern

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This is one of those patterns I had to write because I only have two hands, and 24 hours in a day, and I simply can’t do it all by myself. Knit all the amazing variations, I mean. That’s where you come in, dear knitter. Together, we can do this!

A Comfortable Coze

I’m terrible at coming up with names for patterns. I don’t know, maybe I have too many criteria (multiple connotations, a nice ring, appropriateness, etc.), but at any rate, I’ve been reading a lot of Georgette Heyer recently and I love the phrase “a comfortable coze”, meaning a tête-à-tête, so I finally alighted on ‘Coze’ as a name for this vest. The OED informs me that the word was probably derived from French ‘causer‘ (to chat), and cites a quotation which uses it as a verb: ‘cozing’. Just like a good book, I think of these knitting patterns as our way of having a comfortable coze, and a cosy one, at that.

The vest is amazingly simple. It’s made up of 2 garter stitch rectangles – nothing but the knit stitch, over and over. This means that even a beginner can knit it, and even a beginner could figure out how to substitute a stitch pattern for garter stitch. For example, any of the patterns from The Little eBook of Knitting Stitches would look lovely.

Instructions

If you’re sensible & orderly & don’t like ripping out knitting…

Knit a gauge swatch at least 15cm² and measure the number of rows & sts per 10cm/4in. (Perform each measurement 3 times and calculate the average).
Measure the distance between your shoulders or measure the back of your favourite top.
Calculate the number of sts you need to cast on to get the back of the vest the right size.
Measure the height you want your vest to be and calculate the number of rows you need to work, based on your gauge.
Cast on the right number of sts for the back, knit for the right number of rows.
(yawn)
Measure across your side and halfway across your front (around your widest part). Calculate how many sts you need to cast on to achieve this width. Cast on this many sts, and knit until your second piece is the same length as the total of the sides and top of your back piece. You’ll probably want to count rows and match them up.
Cast off your second piece and sew it onto the back piece (see schematic). If you’ve knit your sections in garter st, mattress stitch from the outside along both sides, leaving a gap large enough for your arms at the top (try the vest on before you cut the excess yarn or weave in ends). Then backstitch across the top from the inside of the vest, making sure the outside looks neat.
Try it on, if it looks good, weave in your ends, making sure they’re not visible when the shawl collar is folded over.
C’est tout!

If you’re like me & just can’t be bothered…

Guesstimate and cast on a bunch of sts and knit a few rows.
Measure against the back piece of your favourite cardigan. If you haven’t guessed right, see how many sts more/less you need, rip out and start again with the right number of sts.
Knit until the piece is long enough, or until you think you’ll run out of yarn if you knit any more. Don’t cast off, in case you need to adjust the size. Slide all the sts off the needle, because you need the needle to knit the next piece, and put the back gingerly to one side.
The piece that makes up the front needs to be at least half the width of the back piece. You’ll want to add a bit more width, assuming you’re not 2-dimensional, and if you have boobage, you’ll probably need even more. I wouldn’t know. So cast on half the number of sts as you did for the back plus a bit more.
Knit until this piece is the length of the sides and top of your back piece added together. If you have some yarn left over, you can add extra rows to each piece (remembering that for each row you add to the back, you’ll need to add 2 rows to the “front” piece).
Once you’ve used up all your yarn and your vest is long enough, cast off both pieces and sew them together as described in step 8-10 above.

The specs for my vest are as follows:
The first piece is 38cm/15in wide and 34cm/13in tall.
The second piece is 25cm/10in wide and 110cm/43in long.
My gauge is 14sts x 25 rows in 10cm/4in.
I used up all of 200gr of heavy DK-weight wool (approx. 400m/437yds) with 5mm/US 8 needles.

Variations I’d love to see you make

lace (all-over or just on the edge)
stripes
fair isle
moss stitch (preferably English moss-stitch, but I’m not too picky).
cabled edge
long
baby-sizes (how quick would this be?!)
with a counterpane square for the back
with the long piece picked up & knit lengthwise
pockets!
buttons (double-breasted?)
a fringe

I do hope you’ll join me in cozing. Just ‘cos. :)

30th October, 2012 // Layers, Tops // tags: free, mindless knitting, top, vest.

Free Circular Shawl Knitting Cheat Sheet

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Favourite & Queue on Ravelry

The only thing more mindless to knit than plain top-down shawls are plain centre-out shawls. Following on the popularity of my first Shawl Shaping Cheat Sheet (to date it’s been downloaded by over 12,000 knitters), here is a second cheat sheet, this time for medallion-style shawls knit in the round.

The hardest part of creating this cheat sheet was deciding which shapes to include. In the end I went for the swirl (or spiral) because it’s ever-popular, even though it stands out a bit from the others because it uses single increase units instead of double, and the hexagon because, although it might not be an obvious shape for a shawl, it has several advantages: 1) it tiles (tesselates) nicely, so it can be used in a modular fashion, 2) it can be blocked reasonably round, and 3) it can be folded in half for a very wearable shawl shape.

If you’re new to knitting in the round, you may want to read my page All About Circular Knitting. Barring the cast on, which can be a bit fiddly even for experienced knitters, these shawls make great beginner projects. As with the first cheat sheet, they can be knit in any weight yarn, and you just keep knitting until you:

Get bored,
Expire,
Suspect you might be knitting a ranch house,
Need the needles for another project,
Realise it’s been a year since you started the round,
Become convinced your stitch count has more figures than your income,
or, you know, decide your shawl is large enough.

“I call this the Rosetta Stone of shawls.” – PurlOnions
I received this comment on my 5 Basic Shawl Shapes Cheatsheet just today and it made me chuckle in delight, not just because it’s an amazing compliment to my work (thank you, dear PurlOnions!) but also because I’ve been a bit obsessed with Egyptology recently!

And speaking of languages, I want to thank lovely Jennifer (Nylwenn on Ravelry) not just for translating the Cheat Sheet and the Bow Pouch patterns beautifully into French, but also for putting up with my slow communication. Merci beaucoup!

Other Excellent Uses

You can use the circular or swirl instructions to knit top-down hats! Knit until the circumference of your “shawl” is the same as the circumference of your head (where the hat brim will sit), then continue knitting around without increasing until the brim is long enough for you. Bind off and you’re done!
Knit each shape until it’s large enough to use as a coaster. You’ll learn about shaping, and have a set of useful accessories at the end. Solid increases will work better for this, and DK or aran-weight yarn.
Swap yarn colours every few rounds for an easy-peasy way to create a very attractive shawl. Colour-blocking is still in, no?

A Few Pointers

As always when knitting garter stitch, I recommend you use needles 1-2 sizes larger than your yarn calls for.
The abbreviations “pm” & “sm” sometimes cause confusion; these stand for “place marker” and “slip marker” respectively.
You may want to use a different-coloured marker for the “pm” so that you can distinguish the beginning of the round.

More Shawl Resources

Fill-in-the-Blanks Shawl Design
Check back soon for the second volume, for shawls knit in the round!
Crescent Shawl Shaping
Easy Shawl Borders
Mutant Shawl Shapes
Stitch Pattern Fitter

Usage

Please DO NOT redistribute this PDF file.
Please DO NOT link directly to the PDF file. Link to this page, or use this short link: http://bit.ly/shawlshapes2
You are welcome to use this PDF for educational purposes.

Please note this cheat sheet has not been tech edited or test knit! If you do find any errors, despite my best efforts, please let me know and I will correct them as soon as possible. Enjoy! :)

25th September, 2012 // Downloads // tags: cheat sheet, circular knitting, free, mindless knitting, shawl.

Stitch Pattern Calculator

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Click here to access the Calculator

I spent a couple of hours several months back, working through the Javascript Fundamentals course at Codecademy and I was inspired to create a simple calculator to aid in shawl knitting. It solves two questions:

1. How many repeats of this stitch pattern can I fit into my stitch count?
2. How many stitches would I need to have for my stitch pattern to fit perfectly?

If you knit and design shawls on a regular basis, you’ll know how frequently you need to make this sort of calculation. Of course the calculator can be used for all sorts of knitting projects, but I thought I would briefly outline how to use it for shawls.

Using the Calculator for Shawl Borders

If you would like to add a simple border to a plain top-down shawl, you can use the technique I mentioned in Easy Shawl Borders in conjunction with the Shawl Knitting Cheat Sheet. Choose a stitch pattern, count the number of stitches on your needle, then use the calculator to determine how many repeats you can work. If you need a total number of stitches that your increase rate will not allow, then I recommend fudging. No one will know that you only increased 2 sts on that last row instead of 4! ;)

Using the Calculator for Shawl Edgings

You can also use the calculator to help you find/adjust edgings that will work for your shawl. This is easiest when you’re working a top-down shawl and are knitting an edging onto live stitches. In this case, instead of inputting the number of stitches your stitch pattern requires, you would use the number of rows in one repeat. The selvedge stitch number would usually be 0 unless you work a set-up or bind-off row.

Knitting & Programming

I love knitting and I love languages, so it follows that I should like programming. There is a long-standing tradition linking textiles and programming, and I recently came across this excellent article on Knitting as Programming (thanks to my Dad, who teaches Java). Alex draws a distinction between “executing” (knitting) a pattern, and actually programming it (writing/inventing the instructions). It all ties in (in my opinion) to the question of how detailed pattern instructions need to be. I certainly enjoy creating “design formulas” like my Crescent Shawl Shaping Worksheet, and the Fill-in-the-Blanks Shawl Design ebook I’m currently working on. The latter is particularly program-like, including if/else statements and loops. And while I have a long way to go before I can call myself even an intermediate programmer, I do enjoy Alex’s description of an experienced knitter, in particular the phrase “knot topology”:

When it comes to this kind of knitting, an experienced knitter is one who takes a modular approach, mixing and matching existing patterns and individual techniques, to build a finished product. It’s someone who can look at a pattern and figure out how to knit it in a different yarn, a different gauge, and a different size, without breaking a sweat over the calculations. It’s someone who geeks out on the knot topology, the 3D spatial reasoning, and the materials science of it all… and knows how to put them to practical use. It’s the difference between being a code monkey and being an engineer.

I hope you find my forays into programming useful, and have a go yourself at being a stitch engineer. :)

19th June, 2012 // Downloads, Knitwear Design // tags: calculator, free, javascript, programming, shawls.

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