Applying Some Fuzzy Logic
Fall is here! It's time to get warm and fuzzy. Fuzzy Logic is a textured raglan-sleeved sweater that's worked seamlessly from the top down in aran-weight yarn.
The sweater is done in a textured stitch pattern that's made of nothing but knits and purls. I tried to look up the stitch pattern in Barbara Walker's treasuries but couldn't find an exact match. I'm calling my unvention three-row moss stitch: it's like US seed stitch or UK moss stitch except you do the same thing for three consecutive rows, then switch up the knits and purls.
In addition to the textured stitch pattern, Fuzzy Logic also has some details in twisted ribbing. Narrow panels of twisted ribbing run along the raglan lines, at the underside of both sleeves, and all the way down the sides of the sweater. The round neckline, sleeve cuffs, and the hem are also all done in twisted ribbing. As always, both charted and row-by-row written instructions are given for both stitch patterns.
If you don't like ribbing or purling, this pattern isn't for you. The entire sweater is basically made in K1, P1 ribbing — sometimes the knits are twisted, sometimes not. I highly recommend looking up the Norwegian purl to make ribbing fast and efficient.
The raglan increases in Fuzzy Logic are done in a two-step process: with yarnovers or backwards yarnovers on right-side rows that are then worked through the front or back loops on wrong-side rows. I've used this method of doing mirrored increases before on The Comeback Cardigan. Compared to M1L or M1R (strand) increases, yarnover increases don't pull extra yarn from the surrounding stitches which makes the raglan lines smoother.
The two-step yarnover increases are also used for waist shaping on the body.
The scooped neckline is shaped with short rows to mitigate a common fit issue with top-down raglan sweaters: a square neckline that sits too high in the front. To create what's called a front-neck drop, the upper part of the yoke is knit back and forth. You need to simultaneously pay attention to your German short-row double stitches and do both the three-row moss stitch and twisted ribbing on right- and wrong-side rows. (Purl through the back loop, baby!) And this all the while doing two-step raglan increases.
Creating the front-neck drop is the trickiest part of the pattern: working shaping while maintaining the textured stitch pattern on both right-and wrong side rows will challenge your ability to read your knitting and think logically. But after that part is over? The rest of the sweater is then worked in the round and it's smooth sailing all the way down to the hem.
Speaking of the hem: Fuzzy Logic comes with two hem options. For my original, yellow sample sweater I designed a hi-low split hem that's knit separately in flat for the front and back pieces. The back hem is a knit an inch longer than the front. Since the hem is done in twisted ribbing, the much-detested purl through the back loop is needed again.
While working on my second sample, I thought it would be nice to have the option of doing an even and un-split hem knit in the round (and avoid those pesky ptbl's). The gray sweater sports the regular hem option, worked in the round in twisted ribbing.
For my first, yellow-orange Fuzzy Logic I used Holst Garn Cielo (42% alpaca, 42% merino, 16% polyamide, 125 m/50 g, 136 yd/1.76 oz) in the colorway Chanterelle. If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed that after finishing the sweater in late August I was knitting on it again in October. What happened? Silly me: I didn't think to check the dye lot numbers on the yarn I'd ordered.
My sweater had distinctively darker blocks of color on the sleeves and mid-body that I didn't notice until looking at the finished sweater from a distance. For a long while I toyed with the idea of doing sweater surgery and Kitchenering sections of the right dye lot to replace the darker patches. In the end, I took the easy but more laborious way out: ripped back all the way up to the body and sleeve division and re-knit nearly the entire sweater! There's still one skein of the darker dye lot in the sweater but getting rid of that would've meant frogging the whole thing.
Despite this — or maybe because of it? — I wanted to knit a second Fuzzy Logic in another color. And my second sample is even fuzzier than the first one! The gray sweater is knit in Adlibris Alpaca Cloud (70% alpaca, 23% polyamide, 7% merino, 130 m/50 g, 142 yd/1.76 oz) in the colorway Dark Grey Melange.
Although the yarns look very similar on the skein and the yardages and fiber contents are pretty identical, they feel quite different. Cielo is denser and more substantial while Alpaca Cloud is lighter and fluffier. Indeed, my gray Fuzzy Logic feels like wearing a cloud!
I'd recommend using a flooffy and lightweight yarn for the design. Blown yarns, brushed alpaca, or blends with angora or mohair would be ideal. The pattern is written for aran-weight yarn, after all, so in a 100% wool it would be quite heavy unless using woollen-spun or hairy yarns such as Icelandic Lettlopi or similar.
Fuzzy Logic comes in 10 sizes from XS to 6X with a finished full bust of 81–182 cm or 32–71¾ inches. The sweater is intended to be worn with a small to a modest amount of positive ease. Three-row moss stitch is very stretchy — after all, it's like ribbing all over — so it'll expand and contract to fit the contours of your body. As with Tulip Route, choose your size based on upper bust circumference. A schematic of finished measurements is provided on the pattern page.
Back in August in the blog post for Tulip Route, I wrote that many of my test knitters found the bicep circumferences in Kim McBrien Evans' representative size chart a bit too loose. For Fuzzy Logic I tweaked the upper arm sizing so that it's somewhere between Kim's and CYCA standard sizing.
To knit Fuzzy Logic you'll need aran-weight yarn in the following amounts:
XS (S, M, L, XL) [2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, 6X]
approx. 950 (1060, 1240, 1420, 1490) [1620, 1850, 2000, 2190, 2350] m
or approx. 1040 (1150, 1350, 1550, 1630) [1780, 2020, 2190, 2400, 2570] yd
You'll also need 5.0 and 6.0 mm or US #8 and #10 needles (or size to obtain gauge). To separate the twisted rib details on the yoke and body and to keep track of your raglan-increase and waist-shaping placement, you'll also need loads of stitch markers. Eight, to be exact. And a couple of locking stitch markers.
The pattern for Fuzzy Logic is now available in my pattern shops on Payhip, LoveCrafts, and Ravelry (seizure warning). I'd love to see your version — in two or three colors! Share photos of your sweater on Instagram with the hashtags #fuzzylogicsweater and #talviknits.
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