Octopus jumper: should I knit this flat?

Hello! I leapt into my next project without fully thinking through how it would work and now I’m realising the madness of this pattern and wondering if it would be easy enough to knit flat even though the pattern is in the round?

It’s the embrace octopus which seems to have caused knitters many issues but for some reason I thought I’d try it anyway. Mainly what I’ve realised now I’ve done my 10 rows of ribbing is the ridiculous amount of floats that will have to be carried large distances.

If I knit flat and used intarsia I feel like it would make more sense although in a perfect world I’d knit in the round. To do this I guess I’d have to be a short row wizard, cope with an insane amount of yarn caught in floats or use a new strand of each CC every row (would that work even if it meant I had a lot of ends to weave in?)

I’ve scribbled out the main bits of the pattern but just so you can get the idea. Any advice gratefully received! IMG_0798

This is the front chart

IMG_0799

And this is the back.

So on the first row you’d have to carry the CC over 150 stitches.

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Wow, what a striking and challenging pattern!

Have you read through the notes from others on ravelry? There’s some mention of the sizing in certain areas, you might need to take into account.
Some have made it flat and added a selvedge for the seam. I rather like knitting stranded colour work flat but it’s personal isn’t it, if you don’t like working colour work flat then you might not enjoy the project as much as if you work it in the round.
I would choose based on what you’re going to enjoy.

These are just my thoughts. I like working flat and I like the added structure of seams so I would likely opt for flat.
There is an added bonus to working the strands all the way around/across and that is that your tension will remain the same throughout the project and the fabric will have the same thickness and warmth throughout. Working swatches in regular stockinette and one in stranded work will show what the difference would be if you worked it in parts on the same needle size.
I’ve just done a large stranded colour pattern and chose to carry my strands even in the very large areas of no second colour being needed. I had ansleeve almost all one colour but still carried my second colour just for the gauge and fabric drape to remain the same.

The intarsia option would involve heaps of strands, I’ve also worked large patterns in intarsia with dozens of strands. I enjoyed it but needed a break after! With multiple strands of intarsia I found it best to work with the tangle , like a bowl of spaghetti, rather than small balls or butterflies or bobbins. Pulling from the tangle is so much easier than trying to untwist balls or bobbins but it takes guts to dive in to it.
There’s a lot of weaving in, which I generally quite enjoy but it got too much even for me and I had to do it in sections.

Whichever approach you take, I really look forward to seeing your progress.

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I’ve had my eye on this sweater but not seriously dived into to making it. Yet.
It’s really eye-catching and who doesn’t appreciate octopuses?
If you’re thinking of intarsia in the round, see the notes from this project which has a link to a good tutorial for one way of working it.
https://www.ravelry.com/projects/lisapane/embrace-octopus-sweater
I like the idea of working the large background blocks in intarsia and keeping separate balls of the contrast color for the figure. It would cut down on the thickness of the sweater too.
I think I’d go with knitting this flat with intarsia for the large sections of main color. It’ll be fun to see what method you use. Keep us posted.

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Thank you so much @Creations and @salmonmac I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate you!

You’ve given me a lot to think about. Pros and cons abound! I guess I just have to think about which pros and cons I want. :joy:

There’s a distinct possibility that I’m punching well above my skill level but it’s a good way to learn I think. Do something every day that scares you, even when it’s knitting.

I’ve read quite a few of the ravelry project notes and have sized up to hopefully mitigate the arm holes being small and will add extra rows to the sleeves.

I think what I’ll do for now is continue knitting in the round and see if catching floats drives me loopy or if I get into a rhythm. And then maybe try a flat piece, too. Both the idea of the fabric having the same drape if I carry the yarn AND doing intarsia so there’s less bulk are appealing and opposites. At the moment I’m leaning towards same drape so I might as well do it in the round.

It’s such a great jumper. I saw the pattern last year when I was starting and have looked at it so many times! Maybe this will just be attempt 1. Progress not perfection!

Thanks again.

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I like the idea of doing projects that scare you. It’s good to take on a challenge. May or may not work out but worth the effort and always teaches you something. Good luck with it and let us see photos please.

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You might try the ladderback method. I have to work on it but with practice I’m sure it isn’t hard. The ladderback stitches can be knit though most show them purled to have stockinette on the WS. Essentially you get a lined sweater rather than catching floats. Think warm. Really warm.

youtube search for ladderback floats

I may have to buy this pattern. The octopus would be cool on things other than a sweater I think. With some mods it could make an amazing blanket!

ETA Ladderback is a form of double knitting I suppose. Someone else could say definitively yea or nay.

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It’s nice method for carrying long floats over large sections of a pattern. It’s used by several of the project knitters on Ravelry so you’re right on target GG.

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It’s good to have a knitting challenge and to try something you really want to make.

@GrumpyGramma I’m glad you mentioned ladder back, it was on my list of options to mention but then I forgot and it’s a method I am yet to try, but must, I think I’d like it
@NayPo
There’s a nice post here about the ladder back techniques and if you scroll down to the example if the pattern with waves lines across the yoke, it’s a good example if where one would have the question of whether to trap floats, work intarsia or ladder back. The waves look smooth, rolling up and down but in knitting its one row at a time so there woukd be a need for decisions on the technique to handle it (maybe 30 strands of intarsia across one row? Or long floats and trapping them?) - the result makes it look easy.

There was a tutorial I briefly saw once and only half glanced at, it wasn’t relevant to me in that day and then some time later I couldn’t find it. It was regarding catching floats in every stitch when working stranded. It goes against the grain of most colour work advice which is to not catch floats too often, the float catch always causes a slight change of size in the main stitch and I think it could make a stiffer fabric, however, my last project I decided I was going to trap every 3 stitches “whether I need to or not” that was my rule to myself. I found it freed me up enormously as I never had to think about where to trap a float (times in the past I’ve spent longer considering where to trap the floats than I have knitting, then questioning every section, marking the chart and so on), even if my float would only be 4 stitches I kept my rule to catch on 3. For me it worked out well, freed me up to work the knitting, everything went faster and smoother and the resulting fabric was more even in my opinion.

Another knitting help post had a question about the technique of trapping every stitch, they didn’t really find the answer but this piece was linked and I notice in this the traps are every 4 stitches (and likely a smaller gauge than I was working), the method of trapping up, then down (although i dont let go of the yarn to trap it, i keep it in my left hand) yarns don’t get tangled and the floats are short enough not to get pulled easily.

One other thing I forgot …
Another of my reasons for working flat on my big colour projects is the size of the charts. If you have a comfortable place to knit where they are all laid out and you can successfully control the method of keeping your row highlighted then working in the round is fine, for me though I had several sheets of A4 print out for each section and just working a back was a large chart, a lot of guide stickers or papers, bull dog clips etc, it was a job in itself to follow the chart and to shift my row markers. For me having to double the chart size to work front and back in one go would have driven me crazy. It’s another thing to add to the list of pros and cons. The charts with no repeats are a challenge and fun but no repeats means no little chart easy to pop by your side.

Thank you @GrumpyGramma and @salmonmac. That technique is absolutely going on the “to learn” list for this year!

@Creations I totally agree with you that “rules” like that actually free you up to get on with being creative. One less thing to have to think about when you’re doing something complex. I don’t know if this is of any use to you but I have a TV that can mirror images from my phone. So what I do is take a snapshot of the area I’m working on and have it on the TV (cue hundreds of jokes from my husband about the knitting channel!). For this project it’s no good because even on the TV the boxes are too small and I can’t see where I’m at but it works well for smaller charts and repeats.

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Well something extremely lovely just happened. I was googling the octopus jumper intarsia and found a knitter on Instagram who has done it flat and intarsia and left a comment saying that’s how I wanted to do it and it’s good to know that other people have done it that way and she’s offered to email me the charts she made for it! How kind is that?! I nearly had a little cry. Knitters are the best!

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Wow, that’s generous. I hope the charts are just what you need.

Knitters are the best! Good for you for searching Insta.

Thanks for all the help gang! Knitting flat in intarsia with @Creations spaghetti strands is working out well!

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I love it!!!

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That looks great! Can’t wait to see your progress on this challenging project!

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Wow, you’ve made massive progress with this! It looks great.

As you get to the sections which have more of the contrast colour you might want to brave the tangle and pull off even longer spaghetti lengths. When i first started i was only pulling off 2 or 3 meters as I’d seen a video advising this (forgotten the designer name but it was a multicolour shawl all in intarsia, the name is in my head somewhere!) But as I progressed I decided to go longer and longer, the longer the strand the fewer ends to weave, slightly more jumbled spaghetti in the back but it does still pull out to the fabric/needle end. If any of the tangle starts looking tight loosen the tangle rather than trying to totally untwist everything. There’s a video somewhere of someone doing this, gently opening up the tangle rather than tying to unknot each strand. It works. Might be useful for you in the later part of the chart. I’d pull 10 or 15 meters off the ball in one go.

Ah, I found it, the item is on Modern daily Knitting and the designer was Kaffe Fassett
https://www.moderndailyknitting.com/community/intarsia-the-full-ball-fallacy-and-other-tangle-tips/#:~:text=Pull%20from%20the%20tangle.,up%2C%20and%20on%20you%20go

Thanks for posting the pic, it’s so exciting to see this progress.

Oh that was nice throw Creation, this kind of color work I can do but intarsia is your “socks” for me. Thanks for idea.

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Way to go NayPo. It looks fabulous already.

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This is going to be a gorgeous example of the pattern. Very well done!

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Oooh! Ok, I’ll do this. The yarn is allegedly Aran but it’s definitely more on the chunky side so it runs out really fast. Good to know it works well. Thanks so much!