A Difference of Opinon

With all due respect to the designer of my current knitting project; I acknowledge her ability, her writing skills, the time and effort she put into conception, planning and presenting this pattern. Which by the way, I'm really enjoying seeing how it's coming out and all ....

But...

WHY?

Why do it ASSDFF all in pieces and fuss about sewing stuff together?

Why would you change the build concept halfway through the pattern. More to the point.

You had me knit the fronts and back all in one, with mock seams. Pretty awesome. Sleeves being separate I totally agree with as they are raglan and that's an annoying thing to try and figure out how to pick up and knit down to the wrists to be sure. For that matter I also find that the sleeves that are knitted down from the shoulder tend to stretch on me... so like I said, all for those separate sleeves.

I won't quibble with you over the hems and how you chose to present them. We did agree on the provisional cast on though I personally find it easier to reverse stockinette on smaller needles, one row of purl or picots even for a turning row then switching up to the body size and catching up the caston stitches for what I would have been satisfied as a satisfactory hem (if not exactly as yours was). Whoops, guess I did quibble a teensy bit there. However, I still did them your way and lived so it wasn't too bad after all. :)

So now I've got two sleeves, and one piece that is fronts and backs. Cool you say? All done but the making up, right?

Yeah, not so much. Now we get into the part where I am going to quibble. There's this really cool wavy ribbing edging on the pockets that works up to a nice shawl collar. A shawl collar and deep pockets were the two design features I was looking for when I chose this pattern.

My bad for not reading the whole thing all through. To be sure.

But it's my blog and I'm still going to quibble.

So we've got this body piece, and we've picked up the conditional cast on stitches and made our pocket fronts with our mock seams and hem. Now we get to adding the edging...

And herein lies the heart of my bitching.

Why are we knitting it separate? Why after so carefully having me knit two fronts and a back and pocket fronts for both sides all in once piece are we switching horses to make it, sew it mode?

Why aren't we attaching the edging like one would for a shawl by knitting it on? The pattern for the edging isn't that tough and you've been so great about incorporating in the selvedge stitches for sewing...why not just use them for attaching so that once done either side one could just reverse seam the back of the two collar sides and voila instantly done sweater.

This is minor for most, me included to be honest. And in no way am I questioning your ability or design, nor am I finding errata in the numbers. I just don't get the whole sewing it together annoyance.

Granted I'm the first to admit I'd rather 3 needle bind off shoulder seams than sew them (for strength and stability of course but also cause I can't abide sewing :) ) so the whole idea of sewing an entire facing and collar when it would be just as easily done to knit it on is bugging the heck outta me.

Is it fitting the shaping to the curved edges of the pocket? Don't think so, cause you are so line by line careful to address that shaping in the instructions for the edging and collar. Did you just want to pad the pattern to make it fit the space allocated for your pattern in the magazine? Did the editors of said magazine make this change for you? Always a possibility I realize, that what one submits for publication can be quite changed when finally publshed...

I'm still just left wondering why.

I suppose it might be unnecessary to say but I will be knitting the edging and collar on even though I'd promised myself that I would slavishly follow this one...this time.

Appears my best intentions are built upon sand.

Stay tuned... I'll let you know.