In my circle, the men I love and want to knit for want to wear plain sweaters.

I want to knit interesting things.

Herring Run makes us all happy because it is a plain, classic sweater to wear; but the knitter has an origami like construction experience. Except for the rounds just before the sleeves, that’s an afghan making experience. But not a boring afghan.

Herring Run begins in the round with a 1-1 rib crew neck. The knitter adds short row corners to the back of the neck, shoulders and chest, works short rows until the front neck short row corner is added, and the piece is shaped like a square on point, then the work increases at all corners every other round. When the corners reach the shoulders, the diagonal stitch pattern in the upper arm orients so that the herringbone will run down the sleeve, but the shape of the sweater continues to be a square until the sleeve shaping. The sleeves are joined in the round, increasing at the top of the arm, decreasing at the bottom until the wrist, at which point a short row triangle fills in until the wrist ribbing. The body is finished the same way as the sleeves.

I found it helpful to have a variety of needles for this project, small circular needles or double pointed ones for the neck, yoke, and wrist ribbing, 2, 24’’circular needles to hold all of the sleeve stitches on the bias, and one 57.25’’ needle for the huge rounds before dividing the sleeves.

Thanks to my technical editors Kitty Wunder, Debra Gerhard, and Ruth Brasch; and to Lindsay Lewchuk for test knitting.