It's like driving across Montana

My friend, and fellow Nihon Vogue student, Joni compared knitting a dolman garment to driving across Montana. It just seems to go on, and on,and on!

I wholeheartedly agree. I might even say it is like driving to Florida and back!

As tried to remind myself while knitting that as I was knitting the front or the back, that I was also knitting the sleeve at the same time!

Let me tell you something you don't want to do. Make a mistake and have to frog. I made an error in my cable and had to rip back 20 rows(it was an unrecoverable type of mistake or else I would have just frogged the cable portion). I wasn't just ripping out 20 rows of my left front, it was also 20 rows of the sleeve!

During the project drafting phase I wanted to minimize the bat-wingy-ness of the garment. As you will see in the photo below, my bat wing is pretty small.

I just finished knitting all my dolman pieces. As you may recall, the cable is from A Cardigan for Arwen by Kate Gilbert. I love that the cable is reversible.

I still need to decide how I am going to finish the neckline. Will I do the same cable as the collar, will I do a rib(saw a cute stand up rib on Arwen in Ravelry - looked very sharp)? Hmmmnnn. So many options. That is what I love about creating my own design rather than following a pattern - I call the shots!



Can you see all the markers along the shoulder line in the photo above? That is where you do a ton of short rows to create the shoulder slope.

How to join the shoulders? You can do a 3 needle NV technique bind off, you can kitchener it or you can do as I am doing. The 3 needles bind off will result in a seam that you can see rather readily. The kitchener may not provide enough support for the whole garment. The technique I am going to do is to bind off the front and then kitchener the front and back pieces together. This will give the most seamless look while providing more support at the shoulder seam.