The Russian Coat Adjustment

I have been working on Vogue Knitting's "Russian Coat" pattern -- it's #5 in the Holiday 2007 issue. This is a gorgeous one-size-for-all coat knit out of joined hexagons and triangles in two beautiful yarns.

I have made one adjustment to the pattern to accommodate what I see as a small weakness: each hexagon is knit back-and-forth and then seamed into a flat polygon. That means that while five of the spokes are formed by the decrease pattern, one is formed by a seam. You have to be really good at seaming to make it look identical to the other spokes. As someone who is, well, deficient in the seaming department, I protest! Also, one of the beauties of this pattern is that you pick up stitches from previously knit hexagons to begin the next -- thus avoiding seaming. Why add any when you can avoid it?

I modified the hexagon patterns to be done on double-pointed needles. This was fairly simple.. cast on the required number of stitches, MINUS the two selvage stitches. Distribute among the desired number of DPNs (I use 4), join without twisting and go, just adjust the instructions to ignore the selvage stitches. This means where you normally would have knit your selvage stitches, you are doing another decrease section for the spoke. When you get near the end, you want to stop and bind off according to the instructions when you have (PublishedStitches - 2) since you don't have the selvage anymore.

This does require some care in paying attention to where you are beginning a round, since the decrease pattern calls for being conscious of what row you are on. But it much simpler overall than doing the seaming at the end.