I must have known about this little trick, because I used it on sweaters I made before I found it in Cat Bordhi’s New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One. It’s an incredibly easy way to handle the knitsch that happens when we bind off any project worked in the round.
Category Archives: Techniques
Technique: Phony Seams
Because the sweaters I’ve made in the last ten or so years have been regular wool, requiring hand-washing and drying flat, I’ve added Elizabeth Zimmermann’s phony seams to the sleeves and bodies. Phony seams make laying out garments quicker because the fabric will naturally fold at those points.
Shaping: Finishing the Front Neck
What is the one piece of advice we all hear and even give—yet ourselves ignore—as we knit?
Check your gauge before you begin, and check it as you work, changing needle size as necessary.
Yeah. I only did the swatching part. I forgot to check as I went. My initial stitch gauge was good, but about an inch and a half in, it tightened up considerably. When I put all the stitches on ribbon to do a test fit, it seemed awfully narrow and short. Now, the narrowness will relax out a bit with the first laundering, and as for the shortness, well, I swatched and accounted for the number of rows/rounds I’d need to get from the back neck to the underarm. I decided I was just going to trust the numbers, almost in spite of the evidence that was before me in the mirror.
Controlled Frogging
If you need to rip out more than one row, it’s easy to go too far.
Working in the Round
Whether you’re working on DPNs, circs, or a Magic Loop, don’t pull out all the needles. Pull out just one, rip back the necessary number of rows, and pick up the live stitches.
Repeat for each needle.
Working Flat
Instead of pulling the needle entirely out, drop off a small group of stitches, “small” being in the eyes of the beholder.
- If it’s plain stockinette, you might drop twenty stitches off.
- If it’s a complicated pattern, you might drop one stitch repeat at a time.
Rip down the number of rows, and pick up the live stitches on a long circular needle (not a straight needle).* Remove the next group of stitches, drop them down, and pick them up in the proper place, relative to the already-ripped stitches, on the circular.
Repeat for each group of stitches.
*Using a circular needle means you can drop stitches in either direction from the first group, because you’ll always have a needle tip on both ends of the circular. A straight needle will have a knob on one end.