I want to knit Ragna from Viking Patterns for Knitting but I’d much
prefer a cardigan to a pullover. Couldn’t I just split the front between
the center cables and put a zip in there? Here’s a picture I found
from the net and there’s a few on Ravelry as well…
Thanks!
Libbie 
Yes, instead of knitting in pieces, you can knit fronts and back together to the armholdes, or do the fronts separately.
Libbie,
you can do it, but you should take into account a few things to make it look neat:
If a sweater pattern is not pretty tight and knitted fabric is not very thin it is ok just to split front part in halves. Otherwise I would add a few additional stitches to the middle line from both sides to make it a little more loose.
Your zipper has to be covered from both sides with knitted fabric to look neat. The only visible part of it will be a narrow strip with “tooth” on it.
To cover it from both sides you have to knit an additional strip of the same yarn like your sweater. It has to be long enough to hide a zipper. In other words a zipper has to be sewing in BETWEEN two layers of knitted fabric.
How is it made? If it is knitted in the round you could do a steek.
It is interesting, that one of the Ragna’s have a centered cable (the green Ragna below)and others have two centered cables with a ditch inbetween them.(the cream Ragna) :??
Well, I have the Ragna pattern. I’ll go look at it. Maybe the green Ragna is a size XS.
Merigold had a good idea about the steek. That’s the first thing I thought of. But, do you have to knit in the round to create a steek?
If you knit the front separately, why couldn’t you just knit a steek into the middle of the design? That would work for this Ragna:
In the round, or flat…you could place a steek smack dap
in the middle of those two center cables. I’d make the steek
a least 16-20 stitches in width. You’d have plenty of knitted
fabric to work with for the zipper.
When I saw the green one I was a bit thrown as well but I’m assuming
someone just wanted to make a much smaller size so omitted a cable
panel.
It is knit flat (although no reason it could not be knit in the round) you
knit the 4 tabs and then join them to continue up the front/back which
is why I thought I could just join 2 for each front section. I had
thought when it was done to do an applied I-cord to the edge to
neaten up things for a zipper.
The steeking is an interesting idea and I’m always up for something
new. I’ve only ever done a steek with 2 different colors so how does
one do it with just a single color? I thought there had to be the
"meshing" of the 2 alternatinig colors to help it hold, but I am
a complete steeking novice!
Thanks for the help!
Libbie
I am not a steeking expert, having only done it once, but I don’t think you have to be doing stranded knitting to steek. People use it a lot for stranded knitting because it makes the stranding a lot easier, but Braden ( I think is his name–young man knitter from this forum) said he likes to steek most of his sweaters.
A knitting buddy of mine (Kent, yes his name is KENT!) over at Ravelry…is working on a cabled jacket…and he is steeking the front so that he can knit in the round…using one color of yarn. I met him at our LYS for Friday Night Knit-ins…and it is a work of art! Later, he will cut up the middle of the steek, and apply his zipper!
One color is fine! 