Hi Spud & Chloë Friends,
Okay, I hope you are all knitting away on your custom raglan sweaters. It is time for me to wrap things up here on the blog and move on to some new projects and topics! It has been a month or more of fun sweater knitting together. Thank you to everyone for participating and for being wonderful to work with. I appreciate you all. Before I tie things up I want to be sure to let you know that the forum group on Ravelry, Friends of Spud & Chloë, is still and will continue to run the Easy Raglan Knitalong thread where you can jump in to get help from loads of friendly knitters. I love the way people have been helping out in there. Thank you for that.
I want to extend a special thank you to Wendy Bernard of Knit and Tonic and Custom Knits for joining in so whole-heartedly. I could not have done this without her expertise and her raglan sweater formula for success. The entire knitalong project is based on Wendy’s Top-Down Raglan Formula in her book, Custom Knits. This book is the best! Wendy has been an enthusiastic source of help and inspiration throughout the past month. Thank you! Thank you, Wendy! Thanks to the knitters who have gone out in force and purchased Wendy’s book, Custom Knits, as well.
Click here for the Ravelry project page for the Easy Raglan Knitalong!
Click here for the Easy Raglan Knitalong forum thread to ask questions, post finished projects, or give updates!
I want to quickly add how I did the edging on TC’s hood and front neckline in case anyone is interested.
Hood Edging and Front Neckline:
Start at the right front edge of the hood (at the start of the pick up point) and pick up stitches as follows:
56 stitches on the right front hood edge
56 stitches on the left front hood edge
6 stitches down the left front neckline edge
8 stitches across the front neckline edge
6 stitches up the right front neckline edge
132 stitches total.
Join to work in the round placing a stitch marker on the first stitch. Work in k2, p2 rib for 6 rounds. Bind off in rib. Cut the end and pull through the remaining stitch. Weave all ends to the inside and trim.
Two more quick things concerning TC’s Raglan! The ties are 9 inches long and are I-cords made with 3 stitches. The 2-inch pom-poms are made by holding 7 colors together and wrapping 12 times.
As for the kangaroo pocket, I have to thank my friends Alison Barlow and Suzette Cannon of the Wool Cabin. Alison emailed me suggesting one of her favorite patterns that has a fantastic technique for adding a kangaroo pouch on the front of the sweater. I had heard of The Wonderful Wallaby many times before and I have seen many versions worked up in Spud & Chloë Sweater because it is the perfect gauge for this project. They sent me a copy of the pattern and it is exactly that, wonderful!
I had to make a few minor modifications to the pattern to make it work for this project but really I used the technique and design of the Wonderful Wallaby kangaroo pouch pattern. I suggest that you get your hands on this pattern because it is completely charming and clever. It is a basic pattern for a yoked hoodie sweater with a genius design for the kangaroo pouch. The best part is that is is written for ages 2 all the way through an adult-size XXL! You could literally make a version of this sweater for anyone in your life. It is a great pattern. The pocket design is truly smart and clever and I learned a new technique for picking up stitches on a finished garment that is way cool. I will totally use it again.
One way to purchase The Wonderful Wallaby pattern is to call Alison and Suzette (they are sisters!) at The Wool Cabin and they will send out the pattern right away. They carry Spud & Chloë and Blue Sky Alpacas as well if you need any yarn to add in. When I called my order into the shop I received my pattern the next day! I am in Madison and the shop is in Salt Lake City. That’s pretty darn good service.
Here is the phone number and tell them I say hello if you call:
801-466-1811
For the pdf version of the Easy Raglan Sweater I am grateful for the help of Shelley (scoobie2 on rav) on the Friends of Spud & Chloë group. Along the way she spent hours and hours putting the parts of the pattern guide into beautifully designed pdfs and linked them on the forum group to share with everyone. They are well-done and fantastic. With Shelley’s permission I am posting these pdf links here. You can print out certain parts at a time or even select specific pages to print out. Thank you so much Shelley!
Here are the links to the Easy Raglan Sweater parts for the free pdfs:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 2.5
Part 3
Part 3.5
Part 3.75
Part 4
Part 5
By the way, someone over here is pretty excited about bringing her French Horn home from school this week for the first time. She doesn’t know how to really play yet but has been non-stop playing anyway all week. You can imagine, right? It is really funny and really loud. TC wanted to include her French Horn in the final photo of her sweater for you to admire. Love that.
If you would like to go back and read the posts online for the knitalong here are the links for the posts involving the creation of the Easy Top-Down Raglan. These posts include information about the stripey hoodie version I made for TC, too.
Click on the following links:
August 2010
September 2010
I also made a couple of video tutorials for the knitalong.
Click here for the video on picking up stitches.
Click here for the video on the 3-needle bind off.
Well, there it is in a nutshell. This has been quite an experience, a whirlwind knitting time together. Thank you, Knitters.
Design Coordinator extraordinaire and resident social butterfly, keeping you up to date on her wee cousin Chloë and her pal Spud. Find her musings at 
