I am addicted to raglan cardigans. I find them sooooo relaxing. Perhaps because I know exactly what I must do…
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Are you laughing already? Me, knowing exactly what I must do? I have to admit this time my pompous claim to know everything was not as exaggerated as many other things I have written till now. I knitted and crocheted so many top-down raglan sweaters so that I am fairly competent with this. But there are still two three parts I must think about:

• The size of the neckline.
• The size of the sleeve opening
• The short row part of the back neckline.
  

I will explain my difficulties regarding the Fake Frankie cardigan I started some weeks ago (you can see the early stage here).

The question of the neckline size and beginning stitch count is for a top-down raglan sweater decisive. With this decision not only the width of the neckline is determined, but also the raglan set-up, meaning the later width of sleeves, back and fronts. With the Fake Frankie there was another question to be answered. The original Frankie shows a sweater where the neckline ribbing is knitted together with the whole sweater. Naturally (lazy as I am) I wanted to replicate this. But the original Frankie cardigan has another special feature; its fronts are not closing. This feature is not to my liking and I wanted to change it for my Fake Frankie. What I did not consider is, that neckline and front design are dependent of one another. This led to me casting on and unraveling this beast wonderful cardigan for four times. Yes… me… four times. A novelty. Normally the thing would burn. Perhaps the mediation practice is paying off (no way ?).
My first neckline problem where too little stitches. I would have choked myself. The next try was not much better. The third had an adequate neck opening but here I encountered the relation between fronts and collar. By making the fronts wider (so that they close) the neckline did not lie flat like with the originally Frankie, but the collar was standing up like a mandarin collar or small turtle neck. Super stiff and not to my liking.

For the forth attempt I decided not to knit the collar, and to cast on additional stitches for the fronts after 9 rows. I will pick up the neckline stitches later and hope my above musings are sensible, meaning that the sloped front parts (because of the additional stitches of row 9) will lead to a collar which lies flat.
With all of these thoughts thought, I could finally divide the beginning stitches into the five parts and define the raglan lines. I have chosen to cast on 70 stitches and divided them into 12 for the fronts, 10 for the sleeves and 26 for the back.

Now we are approaching problem two….

I knitted happily onward only to notice with the first try on that the fronts were too big in relation to the sleeves (they weren’t, I miscalculated completely). Therefore, I decided in row 16 to stop the raglan increases for the fronts. In row 50 I tried the cardigan on again and tada: the fronts were too small and the sleeves to big (the noise you hear, is my head on the table).
For the next three times I only increased the fronts. I could have avoided this…
In row 56 I separated the sleeves from the body. I was too impatient to unravel again for smaller sleeves (I know…perhaps more meditation is called for) and here we are:

The last problem will be a future task. I wanted to rise the back neckline and I have read that many knitters do this with short rows. I am not sure if they do it while casting on or later. Hopefully later, because than I have a chance to try this technique out. Has someone tried this neckline trick already?

At last I wanted to tell you of a cmal – a crochet make along. My friend Lisa Pinenotes has designed this beautiful dragonfly granny square and is giving you the pattern for free.

photos by Lisa Pinenotes

I am thinking of a bunting for my entrance because my woven mandala is getting boring (I never made another one…?) The cmal will run till 4th of august and to top the free pattern, she also gives away prices to the participants.
If you are new to crochet don’t fear, Lisa has made a YouTube tutorial, so you can learn to make the dragonfly square. Hope to see some dragonflies ??

Thank you @crosheille for iniciating and @muscara, @shanibeer, @marblely for hosting the #needleworkmonday. If you want to see more beautiful projects with yarn, fabric and most of all needles, follow @needleworkmonday on steemit. Or even better grab your needles and keyboard and join the #needleworkmonday community. You can read more comments on this post on my steemit blog.