Top Honours jumper: 2. Pattern chart and pattern diagram

Past week I've lost myself in working in the new house, painting the stairs and forgot didn't pay attention to make the necessary drawings for the blog. But here they are, the pattern diagram and pattern chart for my Top Honours jumper!
note: 
I have a different approach to this pattern because I learned my lessons when knitting my first jumper. This means that I already know how to make the jumper fit correctly and make small adjustments in shaping as I go.
Click here to go to the Phillipa jumper series.

pattern diagram
So, regarding the general shape the main difference between my first Phillipa jumper and this one is the shape of the sleeves and the waistline ribbing.
Left Top Honours, right Phillipa:
   

When looking at the original picture this jumper starts with the same amount of stitches after the ribbing and increases above that while the Phillipa makes a first series of increases in the last row of ribbing. I liked the little blousiness of my finished Phillippa better and decided to adapt that. In fact, I even adapted the stitch-count of the Phillippa to achieve a zero ease.



Below the Phillipa sleeve and the Top Honours sleeve next to each other. Notice that the sleeve caps look quite different. While the Phillipa has more fullness and uses pleats the Top Honours has a small square shaped extension, which gathered results in smaller, 'uprising' shoulders:


pattern chart
Again, there was no visual pattern chart, only written instructions.
While by looking at the original picture you see 'scalloped' rows, the pattern is formed by straight rows with slipstitces. Quite different, ha?


Because the repeating pattern of the slipstitches it is important to think of how you place them across the yoke and the sleeves. You might need to adjust your stitch-count to that. The pattern itself is shaped by 3 K stitches with a Sl.stitch on each side. Let's take a look at the visual chart:

1st row: K1 *SL1, K3* SL1, K1

2nd row: P1, SL1 *P3, SL1* P1

3rd row: K

4th row: P

Continue in pattern in contrasting color and repeat the 4 rows above.

These 8 rows complete the yoke pattern.

(Twist the different color yarns at the beginning of the K rows)

Are you not familial with pattern charts? click here to read more!

how to make the pattern look symmetrical

When reading the instructions you see that one pattern unit (this is the repeating part between the stars) is made up by one slip stitch and the next 3 sts (this makes a total of 4 sts). To make the pattern look symmetric I made sure to end with a slipstitch plus an extra stitch next to that at the beginning and the end of the row across the yoke. 

Since I learned from the process of knitting the Phillippa jumper I knew how many stitches to use for a good fit. Now I had to make sure the yoke looked symmetrical after finishing the armhole decrease (adapted that too from the Phillipa pattern)

How to calculate:

1. start with the amount of stitches you need for a good fit. 

2. distract the amount of stitches used for the armhole shaping (remember, you decrease for armhole shaping on both sides!) 

3. what is left is the amount of stitches for the yoke

4. to make the yoke look symmetrical distract 3 from the total amount of your yoke stitches and then divide that number by 4.

5. you need to round up or down a few stitches to the closest match. One or two stitches more or less doesn't matter that much in the fit but do in the looks.

why calculate so much?

Now, why should you spend time on re-counting and calculating all of the pattern stitches?

If you follow every written original pattern instructions you will not always end up with a garment you like. As you might know by now, I am quite picky about small details, like the finishing touches or symmetry.
To show you the result when you do your stitch count correctly here is a picture of the sleeve seam. The seam is almost invisible and I like that!
To achieve this I made sure to start with an extra stitch before the first pattern unit but didn't end with the slipstitch and the extra stitch at the end. That way when sewing the pieces together there is one slipstitch next to the seam which makes the pattern look continue all around: 

If you have any questions, please leave a comment!

Next time more about the back neckline opening and the sleeves (you need to calculate the amount of rows as well to make sure the pattern of the yoke continues across the sleeves correctly)

Previous posts about the making of this jumper: 
1. introduction 

Government restrictions on clothing - 1942 article

Have you ever wondered why the 40's garments had less details than in the 30's? Why the 40's jumpers were so short? Why the A-line skirts were the fashion of the day? Let's talk about the wartime restrictions of World War 2. Called 'Victory fashions' the fabric and clothing restriction rules were designed in the early 40's to save fabrics and save manpower. Interestingly, the restrictions were not only applied for ready-made clothing items but for home-made items too. At first sight there were a huge amount of restrictions, starting from specifications on the length and width of garments to details like the amount of buttons and the width of hems. As always, there were two sides of every story. On one side it was a sport to find ways to make the most of your wardrobe while obeying the rules, but on the other, it must have been really hard for mothers to have enough items to dress their fast growing children. Scroll down to read the article.

did you know...
...that it was forbidden to place more than two pockets, pocket flaps  and more than 5 buttons on a suit? There were restrictions on using more tucking and shirring than required to fit the garment properly, and the amount of embroidered details was limited to no more than 6 square inches (=15 cm2)?

Source article: AWW through Trove

More contemporary, vintage inspired shoes

Next post on the jumper is coming up on monday, in the meantime (while painting staircases in the new house) another collection of pretty shoes which would look great with your vintage inspired outfits, this time 25 heels!
(all of these shoes are available in stores right now)

First Roman blind installed!

   
The pics were made yesterday evening, I don't have daylight versions yet. Tutorial on how to make the blinds posted here.

Contemporary, vintage inspired shoes

How about a pair of vintage, 1930's-40's inspired lace up shoes?
Some of these have a vintage look, others are rather free interpretations. However, they would look equally pretty paired with your favorite skirt!
(all are available in stores right now)

1945 Top Honours jumper: 1. introduction

As promised, here is the next WW2 jumper project. I'd like to show you that there are a lot of free online resources for knitting patterns, so this one is not from the AWW like the Phillipa was.
This jumper pattern was published in a 'Charm' knitting booklet. I spotted it online and liked the simple but decorative yoke pattern. Actually, I don't know if this pattern is really from 1945 but by the end of the war patterns often had names referring to  the victory. Also the hairstyle of the models and the smaller shoulder lines suggest this was a pattern from the end of the WW2 years. Think of the Phillipa jumper: the 1940's started with significantly wider shoulder lines and puffy sleeves supported by quite large shoulder pads.

choosing a pattern for the yarn
The yarn I choose is a fingering-weight merino yarn: 'Drops Baby Merino' turquoise which I also used for the Lace gloves.
I mail ordered this yarn and it turned out to be quite bright. First I planned to make a lace patterned jumper but I thought this bold color wouldn't really suit a sweet and delicate looking pattern. I decided that the bright teal needed another color to tone it down a bit. I choose a dark grey shade of the same yarn: left turquoise (color 32) right dark gray (color nr 20):


Now I only needed a two colored jumper pattern. First I was thinking of making thin stripes in combination with a plain yoke, but then I found this 'Top honours' jumper pattern on the internet. Smaller puff in the sleeves and again a simple but decorative yoke pattern.

did you know that...
often, we don't realize how much old color pictures fade! Don't be fooled, according the pattern description the original colors were navy and light blue though the original pictures faded to some kind of greyish-khaki and cream.

Below I Photoshopped the picture and enchanced colors. This is how the original picture must look like. Much better, right?


A mental note: always read a pattern description carefully instead of jumping right into it. Since I had enough of the bright teal I decided to use that as the main color and anthracite grey instead of the light blue.

In the detailed Phillipa series I discussed a lot of the essential steps on how to knit successfully from a vintage pattern. In the next few posts more on the pattern-specific decisions and how to 'mould' a pattern to make the finished garment fit perfectly. In other words, let's put to the test what I've learned when knitting the Phillipa!

Sneak peek new knitting project!

Can you guess what it is?...