Click here to go to the “Phrancko Sweater”

Explanation: If you are looking for the description of my most popular design, the Phrancko Sweater, but ended up here, that is because of an unfortunate merge that was made. You can find the description and link to the popular custom-fit sweater, the “Phrancko Sweater,” at this page: Phrancko’s Seamless Set-in Sleeves

Weaving Diamonds Sweater (this page)

The pattern is available here after you join TKGA.org for $35 per year, possibly the best deal in the knitting world.

This sweater illustrates the ability to work a stranded-color pattern completely in the round by using Phrancko’s Seamless Set-in Sleeves architecture. I decided to work a saddle shoulder version, introduced in the Book of Kells sweater in the Winter 2018 Cast On. The saddle shoulders introduce the contrast color beginning at the neck along with the main color added along the sides of the saddles. The two colors are then worked intarsia style until the neckline is joined and knitting in the round begins. The chart does not begin immediately at the neckline since intarsia is difficult (some think “impossible”) to work in the round. So for those first few rounds, the color that is not used in a section is carried along the WS of the fabric for a couple of rounds before the chart begins. For balance, a few rounds of similar work are added after the chart is completed. Of course, carrying a yarn on the back of a long stretch of solid color could also be very difficult if it is carried by twisting the two strands around each other every few stitches. That would not only make the work slow and tedious, but also would cause difficulty in keeping the two colors untangled as they twist around each other. Instead, the work is completed as in Armenian color work, which essentially both twists and untwists the two colors around a single stitch. This is the technique that was used in Schiaparelli’s famous “Bowknot Sweater”. In using this technique, the color on the back occasionally peeks through to the front. That fact was actually celebrated as adding texture to the Bowknot Sweater. So I’ll just declare that the color peeking through is not a mistake but rather a design feature that helps integrate the charted color section into the sweater.