That Girl! KAL: Which Sleeve?!

Craft & Design Yarncraft

Banner Thatgirl Summer Jacket
Nikol here. I’m almost finished, but I still haven’t committed to a sleeve. I knit one of each and I’m parading around in the mirror trying to decide. Help me pick?
sleevies.jpg
That’s the cap on the left and the flutter on the right. The wee sleeve variations eat very little yarn, so I’m making the torso longer, which I think suits the plainer version. In fact, you can get this length of the collarless, mini-sleeve variation out of a mere 4 balls of yarn.
I also have a great tip for people knitting the original, collared version. I’m a loose knitter, especially in seed stitch, and I noticed my collar was starting to stretch over time. Here’s a very quick way to stabilize the collar, and it has the added bonus of defining the fold.
It’s fastest in crochet, but you can produce the exact same effect by knitting.
Start the wrong side facing and your collar on top, look for the first row of stockinette after the seed collar. It will be the first row that’s composed completely of purl stitches. You’ll loosely work a stabilizing row through those purl bumps.
collarline.jpg
You’ll need an H/8 crochert hook or US 8 knitting needle. You need to use a needle one size up and work loosely so your collar will be stable without pulling in.
collarcrochet.jpg
To crochet, working one stitch through each purl bump, work one row of slip stitch.
collarknit.jpg
To knit, pick up and immediately bind off one stitch through each purl bum across the row.
collarfix.jpg
Voila!
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18 thoughts on “That Girl! KAL: Which Sleeve?!

  1. Lauren says:

    Cap! Definitely cap.

  2. ReichenbachFalls says:

    The flutter is lovely but the cap warms my little vintage-loving heart.

  3. Lauren Boinga says:

    I think your arm looks delicate in the flutter sleeve. So pretty!

  4. lilyncortez says:

    Definately the flutter sleeve! It’s gorgeous!
    -Jen
    P.S. I absolutely adore the colour as well :D

  5. domesticali says:

    Oh, I prefer the cap. So flattering for the arms.

  6. Erinn says:

    I love the flutter sleeve – can you share how you did it??

  7. Plainclothes Goddess says:

    You could avoid having to fix the too-loose collar by using a smaller needle than what the pattern called for. It’s just a matter of finding the needle that will give you the stitches you want. For instance, I know I use a looser tension than the average knitter; when working my test swatch, I begin with needles two sizes smaller than the ones called for in the pattern or ball-band. That is usually right for me. I am teaching sock knitting to a young woman whose tension is really tight, so she has to use a larger needle than average. That’s just the way it goes. Everyone knits differently.
    There’s plenty of free help available for all sorts of knitting problems from your local yarn shop and knitters’ guild. The shop will be easy to find in the phone book, and they will be able to tell you how to contact the guild in your area. We like to spread the joy of knitting!

  8. cupcake says:

    Those are great tips for finding gauge–swatching is critical.
    But I think I did a poor job of explaining the collar fix. It was less a question of gauge and more a way of dealing with the nature of the fiber/fabric. Because cotton & linen have no memory, the collar wasn’t rebounding when it was stretched. My loose knitting wasn’t helping the situation–I Norwegian purl, so my seed is particularly loose and stretchy, even at gauge–but I didn’t want to change the quality of the resulting fabric.
    Going down a needle size would change the tension, but it would also change the drape of the fabric. This way, we keep the loose drape of the fabric overall, but stabilize the collar with a nice, rigid row of slip stitch. The applied row has the bonus effect of enhancing the fold of the collar, which can tend to flop on such a wide neckline.
    I do wish I’d included this row in the initial pattern, because I think it’s a tidy addition. When I was writing it, I experimented with gauge and stitch changes at the collar, but wasn’t satisfied with the results. It took wearing the sweater enough to really stretch it out and annoy me before I hit upon the solution. Necessity was definitely the mother of invention here.
    (As a side note, you don’t need to stabilize the collarless variation because the CO row is stable enough to have the same effect.)

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