Let's break that down - I don't know about you, but I've lost count of how many times I have seen something that I like overall, but I'd change the colour, a design element, the material or any one of a number of small ( & sometimes not so small) details.
I think part of the reason we make is so we can do exactly that; execute the changes that make something unique - or to put our stamp on something.
It appears that I've carried the "I like that, but..." attitude over to my knitting.
A certain textural striped cardigan caught my attention a few years ago. It sat in my queue on Ravelry for a year before I purchased the pattern, & then for another year after I purchased the merino & mohair yarn... & then a bit longer still because there was a design element that irked me.
What had attracted me was a 4-row repeat of stripes one in a solid merino & the other in mohair all the way down - what put me off was that this stripe was not continued at the neckline. There it was at least double the depth of just the merino yarn & it looked odd.
I tried to figure out how to change it while knitting top-down & adding the short rows for the shoulder shaping - but just could not get it to do what I wanted,
I contemplated other patterns with raglan shaping but wanted more of a boxy fit & a contemporary look than a raglan would allow. Traditionally both raglan & fitted sleeves fit closely around the arm...
& show every bunched-up bit of short sleeve tops, dresses & t-shirts worn under them - this was something else that I wanted to avoid.
Then there is the fact that there are loads of striped raglan cardigan patterns around & not a single one of them fits nicely across the back of the neck.
They are all top-down & all have straight, wide ill-fitting necks... as is often the case with top-down cardigans, unless you can use some strategically placed short rows.
The only thing left to do was to design something myself. So I did & I couldn't be more thrilled with the result.
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