Last week I was delighted to be part of Brooklyn Tweed’s Wool People 6. My contribution was Carpino.
The idea for this sweater came to me over a year ago. I wanted to create a sweatshirt like top that was really easy to wear and very comfortable. But I didn’t want a standard sweatshirt, the front was going to have a lace panel. But not fussy lace, a delicate texture lace. In fact the lace is so subtle I had someone on ravelry ask me where the lace was :-)
A lot of the details in this sweater are very subtle. It is designed from the top down with raglan shoulder shaping. But it’s not standard raglan shoulder shaping, it begins with the top of the sleeves a little wider and not increases for the first few inches. This creates an effect similar to a saddle shoulder. The edge of the neck is finished very minimally when you’ve finished knitting with an applied I-cord.
The front lace panel continues right down to the hem of the body but very gentle shaping is added at the center of the back. It would be easy to increase or decrease this shaping as needed for your own body type. The sleeves are knitted to be 3/4 sleeve length but again as it is worked from the top down it would not be difficult to change the length to suit yourself.
When I took some of my own photos I tried it on over a dress as well as with jeans, I think it could be work in a variety of ways. How do you think you’ll wear your Carpino?
I really like the style of this sweater. I often avoid raglan sleeves because I have very straight shoulders, but by the sounds of it your pattern shaping should make it more comfortable?
Yes! For straight shoulders this should be closer to a style that suits you as it would be a little closer to a saddle shoulder construction.
Carol you really nailed this as far as comfort goes. How you described it is exactly what I had in my head. I’m looking forward to knitting this one up for myself!
I’d wear my Carpino with my jeans – like I do other sweatshirts. A really simple comfortable looking pullover, very appealing.
Oh this saddle shoulder is brilliant Carol! I’m at a point where I’m considering not doing any raglan sweaters anymore since it just doesn’t fit my pretty broad shoulders. Especially cardigans which just ‘fall off’… but this may do the trick. Love this!
Hi I love your patterns and want to support Irish and British designers. But I come from the Yorkshire Dales where I was taught to knit to knit in the age-old way using long straight needles with one held rigid. This technique allows the quickest knitting. Knitting in the round from the top down is just so slow I don’t want to switch. Converting a pattern to knit from the bottom up on straights is virtually impossible. Any chance you’ll be producing bottom up patterns ? Cheers Chris