A Bluestocking Knits

Suse writes happily, "I have chosen my wool!  Da-dah!!!  8ply DK in cranberry.  Am ordering it tomorrow so hopefully this time next week I will have cast on, or at least swatched …"

Theresa has in fact finished!

I had put off the back piece, a bit dismayed at the prospect of working that wide piece on regular-sized straights (one US2 and one US3, not being in a situation at the moment to use Philippa’s brilliant suggestion of interchangeable circulars), but it proved not such a bother as I had thought.  The pleat lines showed up almost immediately, to my amusement.

The markers are not absolutely necessary, as long as you pay attention towards the middle of the rows.  I never moved my markers from the first row, except once, when I knitted instead of purled one and didn’t feel like tinking back through the cable section, so I moved the pin up to keep myself from missing it again, and simply reset that stitch as I worked the next row.

The points of the diamond gave me some pause, until I realized that the crossing lines do not actually line up, giving a sort of "twisty" effect, instead of the expected Xs.

Some people have voiced a bit of nervousness about the pleat on the back piece.  It’s one of those things that looks a bit daunting and wordy when written out, but when you actually do it, it goes together almost effortlessly.  Here is mine after folding at the pleat lines for the first half, on the right side (the sections will make a kind of S shape) —

Just be sure to hang on to the working needle!  I was so busy folding the pleat that that needle kept sliding out.  Working the K3tog section is but the work of a moment, being only 6 sts long — it’s fiddly, rather than difficult.

And here is the other half of the pleat, which will make a vaguely Z-shaped arrangement —

The last K3tog —

and a finished pleat!  Mine tended to make a bit of an hourglass shape, due I suppose to the loose binding-off, but this came out in the blocking.

Voilà!