Ode to the Ewsca Seamless Cashmere Sweater

Many people, however, are thinking about knitting pullovers. I'd wager that most of those knitters want to make a seamless raglan pullover. And why not? There are so many pros to knitting this way:

•  There's no seaming. 
•  It's easy to resize—by working fewer or more increases you can easily upsize or downsize a sweater
•  You can try the sweater on as you go.
•  If you're knitting in the round, there's no purling!

Here's Knitscene editor Amy Palmer to go in-depth with you about seamless sweaters and raglan knitting.

The Beauty of Seamless

You've seen it—the perfect sweater with gracefully shaped shoulders and no clunky seams. You've probably wanted to knit it. Maybe it has diagonal raglan lines for architectural interest from neck to underarm, or maybe it has effortless-looking colorwork circling the shoulders. A seamless yoke sweater is a thing of beauty, but it can be a little intimidating at first glance.

Why Go Seamless?

A seamless yoke is actually straightforward by definition: a sweater with a yoke (the section of the upper body that encompasses front, back, upper sleeves, and shoulders) that has absolutely no seams. By contrast, a non-seamless yoke has seams at the sleeve-body join. The stitch orientation of and number of rows in the sleeves usually do not align with the body, making continuous patterning on the upper body impossible.

These constructions, such as the set-in or drop-shoulder, also feature shoulder stitches that need to be seamed, front to back. The seamless yoke makes a great canvas for colorwork and uninterrupted stitch patterns—see the illustrations below. Seamless yokes can feature raglan shaping, which gives the appearance of seams without the bulk, or concentric shaping that has minimal obvious structure.