I went to my computer and brought up DesignaKnit (DAK) and brought up a built-in shape for a waistcoat (vest). I changed it around a bit in Original Pattern Drafting and then after picking out my yarn from my stash, I made a swatch. I chose Panama as my yarn and plugged the measurements of my swatch into DAK. Once I had the shapes the way I wanted them I went into Stitch Designer and brought up a new pattern with the number of stitches and rows one of my front pieces was going to require. Then I started drawing my hand manipulated stitches. I used 2 colors, the background was of course, my Panama and the contrast color became my hand manipulation.. Next When I thought I had it the way I wanted it, I integrated my front pieces into the Stitch Pattern section of DAK and lined it all up the way I thought it would look best. Then I went to integrated knit from screen and proceeded to knit the 2 fronts. To the right is what my stitch pattern looked like before I integrated it with a shape.
Once I liked the way I had it set up I went into Knit From Screen and proceeded to knit the 2 fronts. DAK's Knit From Screen is great, every row I knew exactly what to do as far as hand manipulation and what to do when I shaped the front V neck and armholes. Below is a shot of my computer screen showing a sectionI was knitting and at the top right, the whole front piece. The numbers at the top are telling me that I needed to cast on L 43 and R 44 on my needle bed and I had knitted 18 rows and was now going to knit row 19. You can see the hand manipulated stitches and below them the needles I needed to do them on.
This vest could have been done without DesignaKnit but honestly, I tried drawing it out on paper and after working with paper and pencil all day I told myself...why am I doing this when I have DAK and can just draw the pattern on it and put the shape over it and knit! Why did I buy DAK if I'm not going to use it for what it does so well?
The nice thing is, I have the pattern saved now in my computer and can easily change the gauge if I want to make it again with a different yarn, maybe on a different gauge machine. I think I'd have to integrate the shape with the stitch pattern though to make sure the pattern is going to work with a different yarn, I was thinking I might like it done with a sports weight yarn on the LK 150 machine.
My friend's vest has flowers embroidered on the blank squares. I'm seriously thinking of finding a lightweight embroidery design, maybe something like an outline of a flower and doing that on my blank squares. I have some solar active embroidery thread and I think it would be fun to use it for the flowers, there's about 5 different colors of thread so each flower would be a different color when I step out in the sun and be white when I'm inside. Wouldn't that be fun? Well...if I do that I'm going to try it on a swatch first to make sure it looks like I would want it to look.
If you have DesignaKnit, give hand manipulated stitches a try with yours. Let me know how it worked for you.
