Rasen sweater

KP Yoke – Rasen is the second sweater designed by other designers I knitted this winter (the first one is Caroline by eri).

Rasen is a design by another talented Japanese designer Ririko who has already been in MDK’s brackets. It was called Rasen, spiral in Japanese, because she got the inspiration from spiral stairs.

Her sample is knit with Camellia Fiber Company’s Flax fingering which contains alpaca, silk and linen. The alpaca gives fluffiness to her lovely sweater in tender pink and makes the overall feeling very soft, and this dictated my choice of yarn: I should use alpaca.

I eventually used Holst Garn’s Noble & Titicaca. Noble is made from Geelong merino (an Australian wool) and with a dash of cashmere, and Titicaca is a 100% alpaca lace yarn. I love Noble for its rare quality. I have knitted a Henry scarf for my husband with this yarn, and it is not itchy even around your neck and the fabric is not damaged despite of the daily use during cold months around the neck beard!

So here are the shades I chose:

Holst Garn Noble, Glacier

and

Holst Garn Titicaca, Sylver Sky

to get a soft blue grey!

The gauge was okay and I started off the project with the 2nd size.
But just after the neck short rows, I realized that the neck opening was a bit small for my taste (my problem is that I’m rather tall and would take a larger size if I had more curve) so I restarted with the 3rd size’s number of stitches and adjusted it at the first increase to get the size 2’s.

Here’s the picture of the yoke.

You might notice that the neck ribbing stands up oddly. This is because I broke the regularity of the increases at the start by casting on the size 3’s stitches – in the pattern, the yoke increase is very regular from the neck to the underarms and the yoke lies flat.
You would have the same standing-up neck if you modify the neckline, but don’t worry, the blocking will fix this problem!

And as you can imagine, the yoke’s spiral pattern is super fun! I couldn’t stop knitting and finished it in a few days.

After the yoke, you will work the body first. The sweater has an A-line silhouette produced by increases and this gives a feminine touch. But I knew that this shape was not for me. To get less flared line, I made fewer increases and tried it on. And it was definitely not for me… I redid the lower body with a light waist shaping.

Another modification is longer sleeves. With circular yoke sweaters, I always have the underarms going up close to my armpits (because of my large shoulders?) so I always need to make sleeves longer.

And the sweater on me!

We have had a cold April so far at the point that fruit buds were damaged (if you are a French wine lover, 2021 will be a small vintage), but the weather seems to get warmer at last. I can’t wait to wear this light sweater!

NOTES
Pattern: KP Yoke Rasen by Ririko (Hand Knit Life)
Yarn: Holst Garn Noble Glacier & Titicaca Silver Sky
Needles: 3.25 mm / US3 (yoke motif), 3.5 mm / US4 (stockinette body and sleeves) and 3 mm / US2.5 (borders)
Modifications: longer sleeves, lower body with waist shaping