Post Seven - Anna's zig zag sweater - picking up for the ribbing

This sweater is based on a pattern in Interweave Knits, spring 2005. I cast on with one strand of waste yarn and one strand of sweater yarn with the waste yarn on the left of my long tail cast on. This left a row of waste yarn bumps. I knit the body of the sweater and then picked up the bumps of the sweater yarn onto a circular needle a couple of sizes smaller than the rib needle. The waste yarn didn't unzip as in a traditional provisional cast on, but I ended up with the correct number of picked up stitches. Then I unraveled (tinked) the waste yarn and proceeded with the lacey rib. I plan to do a yarn over, K 2 tog at the beginning of each edge (as suggested by Joan Schrouder) to have a row of holes between the bottom rib and the front edge.

Scratch that YO K2 tog at the edges of the ribbing; the pick up ratio for the front bands isn't 1/2 but more like 5/7. So back to the k2 on the beginning of each row.



The picture to the left shows the cast on with waste yarn; the one below shows pulling out the waste yarn (using a conveniently handy cable needle) after the bottom row of the sweater is picked up.