The other day I shared a bunch of ribbed hat knitting patterns, but of course ribbing is great for lots of other projects, too. Ribbing automatically gives anything a structured look, and it’s a great choice when you need stretch in some areas of a project.
The Simple Ribbed Shrug from Purl Soho is a great example of the beauty of a simple ribbed project.
Worked from the top down in 2×2 ribbing, this project would actually be pretty good practice for knitting a top-down sweater if you’ve never done that before. It has a sort of turtleneck top with raglan increases worked to shape the shoulders. Then the body is worked straight to your desired length.
Unlike a sweater, there’s not separating out stitches for sleeves (and no sleeves to knit, which is kind of the worst part of knitting a sweater), and the body is over before you get bored trying to get to the right length.
The project has five size options, measured around the arms and chest. The body circumferences (your actual body) range from 36 to 66 inches (91.5 to 167.5 cm) and it is intended to be worn with 6 to 12 inches/15 to 30.5 cm of negative ease.
We usually talk about positive ease in knitting patterns, but negative ease means that the garment is actually smaller than the body it’s intended to cover. Because this is ribbed, it will stretch nicely and open up the ribbed stitches for an even more dramatic effect.
I love the idea of this as an extra layer tucked into your coat, or something you can throw over your pajamas for a Zoom meeting and it looks like you’re wearing a sweater.
Wherever you want to wear it, it calls for a DK or light worsted weight yarn. The sample is a blend of merino and organic cotton, but I think straight wool would be great for this one, too.
You can grab the free pattern at Purl Soho.
[Photo: Purl Soho]
