After finding an old drawing. I decided to make that. I first came up with this idea when I started to learn how to use the knitting machine. I found that lifting up stiches from several rows down left a great impact on the design. Sadly, I can’t find much online about this. I guess not many people have used this. The only source of information I have found is in a book. I end up buying Hand – Manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitter by Susan Gualiumi. Sadly, I don’t go though the book for inspiration as often as I should. While on holidays I bought some fancy yarns that I can’t buy in Australia. Both the wool and yarn is my source of inspiration for this jumper.

11/3/2025

To start off I need a jumper pattern. I use Designaknit to come up with my design and pattern. I put my measurements in, and I picked out what I want. Well kind of. I can go back and update details. I choose a raglan jumper design. I haven’t made one of these and it’s about time I do this. Also, I think this will be a great way to make my sleeve design pop.

I used Designaknit stitch design page to lay out the stich design I want and colours. I still have a lot to do, and I don’t know what I am doing. Since I can’t find much information online, I gave up. I also couldn’t find away to let the computer to alert me of any up coming changes when I want. Also, I couldn’t add the extra rows to the design because that will change me sleeve length too much. Cleary, I need to learn more about Designaknit before I can go on. Just wing it, isn’t always the right answer.

12/3/2025

Today I selected the yarns I want to use from my stash. I made do with the blue because  it works well with the rainbow wool. I have a lot of white yarns in my stash from when I was experimenting with dying. Sadly, most of the whites I have are unnatural fibres. At least I can knit some amazing items with them. The white cone on yarn I have doesn’t match the label. I don’t know what it is. I did set a small off cut on fire. First time it lit up really well, then I dropped into the sink, so I don’t get burnt. The brunt remains turned into a powder in my fingers. Second attempt it didn’t catch as easily and when it did it put itself out. What ever this stuff I should be careful around flames.

With these yarns and Designaknit on the computer I got started on test swatches. Here I wanted to test how big I make these ridges on my sleeve using the lift up method. This will also see how well the colours look together.  Also well I was doing these swatches I was testing if it is ok to use a USB extension cable. This worked fine. YAY!!

17/03/2025

Maybe six rows look better. Well it’s been a week of looking and think and not thinking. In the mean time I have done a swatch of the Red Heart baby wool. Blocked and got my measurements. I did a swatch of the white. Than I got thinking what if I want 5 by 5 rib. Got thinking different. What if I do a 1 by 1 rip but on the ribber I skip every second row. I don’t now what to call this either and English rib or Fisherman’s rib. The internet is not much help. Especially since I am machine knitting. This stitch looks really good for the body. I’m hoping to use this. Maybe I should give the tuck stitch version a go. Ok so I just did the tuck stitch version. It looks better. More neat and less busy.  I may end up doing that. I just need to do a swatch to get the full measurements and do this properly.

18/03/2025

Starting the day with blocking. I should have done this right away. I will still grab the measurements for the stocking net swatch even though I don’t need it anymore it could come useful in the future. While I’m using the iron I may as well use the iron to iron my uniform.

Well, I’m calling this stitch Fisherman’s rib. I will be using this. In the past I was told it was a man’s stitch for menswear. I’m still wearing it. I have done the swatch. I accidently did sixty rows instead of fifty. Oops. I will just have to take note. Strangely my sample is tighter than my swatch.

Let’s begin the sleeves. I put my tension into Designaknit. I got the computer to tell me what to do. I am worried that I don’t have enough wool. We will see what happens. Starting with the left sleeve. Cuff is done. Almost dropped a stitch. Doing a 1 by 1 rib. Everything was moved to the main bed, and I dropped the ribber. When I increase a stitch, I move 2 stitches over than pick up a stitch up from the row below. This will help get rid of holes. On my first stripe when I was lifting up the row, I missed a needle. Because of this I made it all the way to the end. I decided to keep doing this. This time I aim to skip the centre needle.

It’s taken hundred and two rows. I have used up the first ball of yarn. Maybe I do have enough. Let’s cross our fingers and see how I go. Well, the knot it on row hundred and fifteen.

Hundred and twenty three rows, I have run out of time. I really wanted to finish it in one sitting. Especially because it not healthy to leave your knitting sitting on the machine overnight.

19/3/2025

A new day and back to knitting. Luckily, I haven’t lost my place. I want to finish this sleeve. To speed things up when I am lifting up a row to create my fancy stripe, I am using the two prong tool. At two hundred and twelve I am at the widest part of the sleeve. I’m still on the second ball of yarn. I have hope that I have enough yarn. I am using the stripes as a time to double check. Make sure the needles in use match what the computer is telling me. Row three hundred and fifteen I have hit the ground. Yarn is getting less and less. Will I make it to the end? Row three hundred and fifty six, doesn’t look like I’ll make it. Adding a new ball of yarn. The stripe at three hundred fifty seven is a bit of a mess. A stitch dropped and I had to re knit the white stripe. Sadly, I got a ladder I had to fix. Hopefully no one will notice when I am wearing it. I believe my issue is weight. Since the comb it the floor all the wight is gone. I’ll hang the small weights on and keep going. And in all the confusing I made it one row to short. Oh well I will put the carriage to the other side and get back to work. Sleeve finished. Didn’t even make it to the knot for the new ball of yarn. But I could see that knot in the mast. I still need that third ball for breathing room. It’s now 7pm. Past my dinnertime. I did knit way too long. Oh well.

20/3/2025

Well, it’s a brand new day. My chores are done. Now I can do what I want to do. I’m starting off with blocking my sleeve. I like to get this over and done with. Other wise I’m full of excuses. Blocking is probably the most important thing I was taught. Thank you, Tony, for teaching me that. I’m also using blocking wires. They make it so much easier. They were a nice gift.  

Well my first attempt at the right sleeve failed. I didn’t set the carriage properly. I only did seven rows. Oh well I will pull it out and try again. Second attempt worked. I didn’t make the same mistake. Now That I have a cuff I can start knitting my sleeve. At two hundred and forty seven I added the forth ball of yarn. Good thing to because at two hundred and fifty the knot is worked it. I’m almost at the sleeve head. I should take a break. Three hours of sitting and knitting is not good for the hips. At least I stood up every twenty rows.

Ice tea and a little bit of chocolate. Break time is over. Let’s finish this sleeve. After a few rows the sleeve is done, and I start the sleeve head. Now I have to keep a close I on the computer and make sure I decrease properly. And done. Boy did that take long than I thought. It is worth it though. I still have a lot of wool on the fourth ball of yarn. Maybe I do the waistband with that. The sun is setting I shall save the rest for another day.

22/3/2025

Well, I but the blocking wire in and pinned to the blocking board. The two sleeves are different, really different. Both sleeves are the same length. The sleeve heads are different lengths the left sleeve head is twelve centimetres longer than the left sleeve. I’m really frustrated. Looking at the file the sleeves are different. Why? Ok I had a look at YouTube and at the designakint again. It looks like I modified the pattern. I don’t know how I did that. I never had plans too. I will have to pull out a sleeve and re do it. I can’t buy more of the red heart baby yarn.

24/3/2025

Well after finding instructions online on how to straighten my yarn, I gave it a go. This didn’t look promising. I still gave it ago. After wrapping the yarn around a chair to make a hank. Then I clipped into clothes hanger and put ribber weights at the bottom. Using a handheld steamer I got to work. Going up and down. I was surprised it how affective it was. With the acrylic red heart yarn, I could see the wool moving and starching out. I couldn’t see anything with the white yarn. I left it to dry and got back to it later. Because I didn’t move the yarn around, I didn’t get the yarn where the peg and weight was. Next time I need to create a better system. At least now I have an option. When it was dry I got my wool winder out to turn them in to cakes. The cakes are so much smaller now than before I steamed them. Next time I will need to buy a Yarn Swift. This will make the job of making hanks so much easier.

10/4/2025

Finally, back to knitting. Started with opening designaknit and putting the correct tension in for the body of the jumper. Was about to work out how deep to make the ribbing at the bottom when I had a seizure. Those suck. Well, you need a functional brain to work out the details. So, I gave up and went to bed.

After a nap I’m feel more normal and human. Hopefully I have enough time left in the day to knit something. I decided on 20 rows for the ribbing. Since I have some colour left over from the sleeves, I will include those. After five rows of on by one rib I did one row of blue followed by five rows of rainbow. I can’t see it. Hopefully it looks good. One of me needles on the machine is playing up. I should replace it, but I don’t want to lose my work. So, I moved one stitch across.

Now to begin the fisherman’s rib for the body in white. This should go match faster than the sleeve. The rearrangement I did because of the dodgy needle isn’t working with the tuck stitch. I moved the stitch done to the ribbing bed and included an extra needle on the side. This is looking better. Thankfully this is on the edge of my jumper. People won’t notice. Needle fifteen latch doesn’t work. Now I’m manually lifting the latch every second row for the tuck row.

Oh, WOW I’m already up too the arm hole. This is going a lot quicker than the sleeve. As I decrease, I put the last needle out so it will knit.  After one hundred and twenty nine rows I only need to decrease every second row. Since the computer is telling me to do it one after the tuck row, I snuck and extra row in, so I only do it after the knit row.

It’d done. I have completed the front of my jumper. Wow that was a lot faster than the sleeves. Maybe I do time to do the back as well. First, I will reward myself with chocolate and have a break.

Break over. Time to start the back. This time I had the needle set up opposite of the front. So, the annoying needles are not in work. I copied the stripes in my one by one rib to match the front. I had to go back and double check the front. Twenty rows later its time to start the body.

It is done. Such a good feeling you get when you complete something. Sadly, I got a hole in it. One of the needles dropped on the ribbing bed. The stitch didn’t drop. It was just out of work. I had to re do 3 stitches to put it back into work. Sadly, the first stitch is really long so it left a hole. I wonder if I is fixable. Sadly, I decreased too much and my finally neck edge is tiny. I don’t now I how or when I decreased too much. We will see what happens.

17/4/2025

A few days ago, I finally find the time to block my knitting. Have music blaring in the background. I tried to fix one of m blocking wires. The end has been pinched and doesn’t go though the wool smoothly. I need to find some wire cutters to get rid of the pinched end. After the blocking was all I done I sat on the couch to sew and binge watch. Sadly, my neckline is too small. I have come to realise because I cast off the neck has no stretch. It looks good but won’t work. Also, the back is what to skinny. When I put it on my mannequin, I could see that it doesn’t even meet up with my sleeve. I have no choice. I need to reknit the body. The good thing is I made the neckline deeper. I won’t need to redo the sleeves. I also made the body ten centimetres longer. Also, this time I’ll put the neck on waste yarn instead of casting off. This time I can rehang it when I do the neck band.

With all my chores done I can knit. I’ll start with the back. I recopied my rib. This time remembered that I got dodge needles so I must use the other needles. I have notices that the computer counter doesn’t always match the machine. Every 10 rows I’ll check the computer to make sure it’s matching what the machine does. After one hundred and forty five rows I can start decreasing for the Reglan sleeves. Since I need to make the changes on the tuck row, I knit that tuck stitch before decreasing the stitch.

 The comb has it the floor. Since my knitting wasn’t sitting probably on my machine, I took the comb off to re hang it. That was a disaster. Trying to get the comb back on. I accidentally snagged the yarn. You can already see the mistakes and it still on my machine. Also, the knit is too thin for comb to stay on. I got the comb back on. I hope this works. Its off the machine. That snag is obvious. This time I took it off on waste yarn. The waste yarn was knitted on the main bed. It is tiny. We will see what happens.

A short break and a little bit of chocolate it’s time to knit again. I started with rib. I tried to copy the rib. Since I started on the wrong side. Because of this I had a to do an extra row. In the end no one will notice this. I noticed that I cast on an extra stitch.

On my first increase I only increased on the other side. This will make things easier when I start decreasing. Had to stop at one hundred and eighty one rows. The sun is setting and washing need to be taken off the line. Chore done back to knitting. At one hundred and ninety two I re hand the comb. This time I was extra careful. This is the front. People will look at that more. At two hundred and eight I started the neckline. This time I’m putting everything on hold. I’m nervous because I’m not used to putting things on hold as I use the ribbing carriage. When I need to put a tuck stitch on hold, I need it in first before putting that stitch on hold. I did have to keep moving my claw weights up. Eventually that was not enough, and I had to reach under and pull on it myself. For the last three rows I turned off tuck. It’s one to two stitches across. No one will notice.

24/4/2025

I finally found time to block my body pieces. I didn’t do a good job around the neckline. This was a couple of days ago. I final got a weekend and time to do the neck band. YAY.

I started with hanging the front piece on to the machine. After I got all the stitches on the machine I removed the waste yarn. Afterwards I stretched the neckline out and hang up the edge so the whole neckline fits.  I really want this to work out. I put on the machine to the left a bit from needle ten to needle forty. This way when I add the other pieces it’s more balanced. The sleeves I put on next. I didn’t have to worry about which sleeve is which as much as I thought. With an obvious right and wrong side, I just need to put on the machine with the wrong side facing me.

First, I knit two rows of blue in stockinette. Then I transferred to the ribber bed so I can have a one by one rib. After nine rows I did a really tight row, so the neck band bends over really easy. Then I switched back to my normal tension of five to do the next ten rows. I was worried I’ll run out of the baby yarn. I have a tiny bit left. I’ll make a cute hair bow with that.

I bring up the first row of blue and hang it on to the machine. Then I cast off with a chain stitch. I am worried about the stretchiness of this. Because I accidently added a few extra stitches when I was pulling up the stitches I had to add a few extras at the end. With the back I stretched it out but four stitches. Now to have a movie marathon and sew this jumper together.

29/4/2025

Finally finished sewing it together. I settle down in front of the TV and watched all four movies of the Matrix. As I was going, I was worried that it won’t fit around my neck let along if I can get my jumper over my head. So, I started to thin about plan B. I didn’t want to Have to remake my jumper. To fix the neck line I will have to go back to the pattern and change the neckline. His means every pattern piece will be different. If I did that then I’ll be redoing this from scratch with new yarns. I worked hard on this. I don’t want to do this. Since I left the back of the garment open to be done last. I was planning on undoing the front seams and putting buttons there. Since my partner is home he was making suggestions of putting a zipper in. I didn’t want to do that because zippers take a lot of effort. Also, what if it gets caught. Eventually I got the courage to sew up the last seam. Looking at the neckline I was thinking baby clothes size.

Then I put it on. It fits. I am so relieved that all my hard work has paid off. It is tight around the wrist and a little around neck. I did pick the figure hugging option. That’s on me. Next time I pick that option I’ll pick a much lower neck line. Besides it’s a jumper, It goes over other clothes. I can afford a low neck line then.

1/5/2025

So, I have a little bit of the rainbow baby yarn left over. Let’s use it up so it doesn’t go to waste. I’ll knit my self a hair bow. I don’t have enough yarn left over so I’ll also use some of the blue and white to finish it. I cast on hundred and ninety needles using a chain stitch. I also weaved in the end as I go. After five rows I remembered, and I need to be decreasing every row. Oops. I’ll start now. At seven rows I saw the end of the rainbow yarn. The blue yarn has been attached to the end. Rainbow yarn all used up. At row ten I switch out the blue for white. At twenty rows I call it done. Time to cast off. I’ll set that aside and make some icord. Cast on ten needles and do thirty rows. Roughly five centimetres. Now to block.

The bow is done. I sat down in front of the TV and watched hoarders on YouTube. Sewing it all together. I have done a few of these because it’s a great way to use up some leftover yarn.

2/5/2025

It is done. I’m happy it fits. It is hard to fit over my head. Maybe it will stretch out of time. I did learn from this project. Like when doing the neck you have to put it on hold. Lifting up that many rows take time and effort. This is why we don’t see this feature too often. The colours were fun to play with. Using the yarn, I bought in Estonia was fun. A nice way to remember that Christmas holiday. It’s a pity that it’s harder to get nice yarns here in Australia compared to other parts of the world.