Tuck and knit shaping

Being at heart a stitch pattern designer, I love when the inherent properties of a stitch produce the required shaping. As most observant machine knitters know, or eventually discover, a stitch pattern containing tuck stitches ("knit 1 below" for the hand knitters) will produce a wider fabric over a given number of needles than a plain jersey (stockinette) or jersey with slip stitches will. A simple example of that can be found in my previous post, where I alternated rows of alternating tuck and knit stitches with rows of reverse stockinette. The alternating tuck stitch pattern pushes the rib placket (in these examples) into vertical scallops, making an easy to knit design element.

Here's the knit sequence incorporated into a cardigan.

The "April" a/k/a "Five Easy Pieces" cardigan

Buttonholes have been added to the placket on one side and buttons on the other

My project goal was to design a machine knit cardigan that would not require separate knitting or "picking up" or "sew as you go" for the placket. Even the back neck trim, a continuation of the v-neck trim (sorry no pics of that yet) was knitted along with one of the front panels. Yes, this is the cardigan I've been tweaking for a while. FO.
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Last edited 20Apr2012 to rearrange photos