Today’s post is about another treatment on my reknitting sampler garment. I’ve previously posted about the stitch-hacked initials; in this post I describe how I added frills to one sleeve.
I decided to add some frills (a version of the embellish treatment) and adapted a pattern from a ‘normal’ knitted trim pattern (copied at the end of this post).
I chose to use John Arbon’s Knit by Numbers double knitting yarn, which knits up at 22 st/10cm on 4mm needles. The jumper I was knitting into is very fine gauge: 60 st/10cm. I divided the new st/10cm by the existing st/10cm (22 ÷ 60 = 0.37). Rounding this to 0.4 meant that I needed to pick up 2 stitches to knit for every 5 stitches in the existing fabric.
I put the jumper on and basted a guide line for the frill position. Technically, it is a curve but appears level on the body.
Then, I went for it, picking up stitches of the new yarn through the existing fabric and knitting the trim:
Having knitted it, I tried on the jumper again. I liked the position of the frill, but decided that I’d packed in too many ‘bells’, and that the frill should stop before the seam. I undid it, and had another go, now picking up every 3 stitches. This time, I was happy – the frills were full enough without splaying out the foundation fabric.
I decided I wanted another frill, and wanted it to be in line. Using the first frill as a guide, I stitched a second guide line:
The guide helped me to get the second frill in line with the first:
I sewed the sides of the trim down, tidied away the ends and my frills were complete:
Want to have a go? Detailed step-by-step guidance for the embellish treatment isn’t available yet – but you might be able to figure it out using the description above and the Bells pattern, below. Give it a try! Or take a look at other embellish projects in the gallery for inspiration.
Bells pattern
Pick up a multiple of 4 sts + 3 sts
1st row (RS): k1, *byo, k1, yo, p3; rep from * to last 2 sts, byo, k2.
2nd row: k1, *p1tbl, p2, k3; rep from * to last 2 sts, p1tbl, k1.
3rd row: k1, *byo, k3, yo, p3; rep from * to last 2 sts, byo, k2.
4th row: k1, *p1tbl, p4, k3; rep from * to last 2 sts, p1tbl, k1.
5th row: Cast off
byo = yarn over needle backwards (back to front) to make 1 stitch
k = knit
p = purl
p1tbl = purl through back of loop
rep = repeat
RS = right side
yo = yarn over needle (front to back) to make 1 stitch
Reknit Revolution 