Here we are! Already on week 3 and I'm almost finished with my poncho. How about you? I hope you've been having fun knitting along with me. I truly cannot wait to see all of these finished pieces! If you're following along with us than hopefully you've reached the stripe portion of your poncho. If not, no worries, whenever you finish, we can't wait to see! 

Follow along in the below video to get an overview of how the stripes knit up.

A few things to keep in mind first:

* You will have 4 Cast Away stripes plus the cast off edge is knit in Cast Away, this will look like 5 Cast Away stripes in total when you're all finished. 

* The number of rows per Cast Away stripe varies throughout the pattern - be sure to follow the written pattern for exact details.  Here's a quick overview- your 1st Cast Away stripe will be 3 rows, the 2nd: 2 rows, the 3rd: 3 rows, the 4th: 2 rows and the final stripe 1 row and then the cast off row. 

* We mix in purl rows to create more texture in your poncho - see video for a detail of what this looks like. 

* The Sister yarn portion of your stripe will always be knit in simple stockinette knit stitches - 4 rows total for each Sister yarn section.

Start knitting your Cast Away Stripes

Simply start knitting with the Cast Away yarn. There is no need to knit to cut the Sister yarn until the last Sister yarn row. When it comes time to knit with Sister yarn again, simply start knitting. This will create a little yarn float on the backside of your knitting (see video for reference). As long as you don't pull that stitch too tightly your knitted fabric should not pucker.  I prefer doing this as opposed to cutting the yarn for each stripe and then weaving in a bunch of ends.

This week, try to get through your stripes. Next week we'll be casting off and showing off our finished ponchos- yay! Right in time for Thanksgiving :)

Hooray for week 2! Have you been knitting along with me? I sure hope so! If you've been following along on instagram, then you've definitely seen me progress throughout the week. I made it through the 8" turtleneck rib and I'm now ready to start knitting the poncho body. This week I'll show you how to switch to your larger needles, place your markers throughout your knitting and how to knit the kf&b stitch. Lastly, I'll talk about how to customize the body length of your poncho.

Switch needle size & place your stitch markers

I recommend using 2 different colored stitch markers than whatever you used to mark the beginning of your knitting round. This will help you differentiate between the end of the round and the rest of your knitted body. If you don't have proper stitch markers, a simple piece of waste yarn tied into a circle will work perfectly.

Next up, let's talk about the kf&b stitch also know as 'knit into the front and back loop'. Kf&b is a simple common stitch used to increase your knitting by one stitch. Watch the below video to learn how to do this! 

Would you like to lengthen or shorten your poncho? Here I'll talk about how to do that! If you have any questions along the way, please feel free to reach out to me (amy@knitcollage.com) or the designer Cheryl (cheryl@knitcollage.com) If you'd like to keep up with me, try to finish the body portion of your poncho before next Wednesday, November 16th. Next week, I'll talk about adding in the Cast Away stripes to your poncho.

Customize your poncho length

I'm so happy you'll be joining me while we knit this poncho together. This should be a lot of fun and a great way for all of us to learn a few new things and share our work with each other. If at any time you need help, don't hesitate to contact myself (at amy@knitcollage.com) or our knitting guru Cheryl (at cheryl@knitcollage.com) Please be sure to tag your work on social media with #knitcollageKAL 

First off, a few notes about this pattern:

* The poncho is knit top down which means you can try it on as you knit and easily customize the length if you like. We'll start with the rib turtleneck and work our way down to the stripe border.

* The turtleneck rib length on my sample is 8" high and folds over cozily. If you prefer a shorter neck, you could easily do this by only knitting 3" rib mock turtleneck, or whatever you like. 

We'll get both of the below points in future weeks but I've had a bunch of questions about this, so I would like to address them now:

* If you'd like to increase the length of your poncho to be longer that 25" we recommend doing so before the Cast Away stripes are knit. This means you'll increase in the Sister portion of your poncho and maintain the stripe border look around the edge of your poncho. The stripe area measures 12" in length, so keep that in mind when adding in rows of Sister yarn. If you decide to do this, you may need an extra skein of Sister yarn. 

* If you'd like to decrease the length of your poncho to be shorter than 25" we recommend removing 1 Cast Away stripe - this will remove approximately 4" from the body length. 

And now let's get started and talk about the all important GAUGE swatch!

Before you cast on, please make sure to do a gauge swatch. Your gauge should match the gauge of the pattern- 1 3/4 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch on size 17 needles (the larger needles). This will ensure that when you knit your poncho, it looks like ours and is not knit too tightly or loosely. You may find that you need to go up or down a needle size to match our gauge. This yarn has a slubby texture with thick and thin areas, making gauge a little trickier to measure. A gauge range of 1 1/2 to 2 stitches per inch is perfect - more on this in the video above. If you need help learning how to cast on using the long tail method- watch this video.

Next up - let's cast on and join our knitting to knit in the round. I'll do a quick demo on how to do that and how to knit a 1x1 rib for your turtleneck.

You are free to of course work at your own pace however if you'd like to follow along with me, then try to finish your gauge swatch and knit the rib turtleneck area before next week's blog goes live on Nov 9th. On that date, we'll talk about how to switch needle sizes, add stitches and get started on the body of your poncho.