Because I know from my swatching that 7 rounds are enough to counteract rolling in this yarn, I’ll do that many rounds on the neck, compared to the 10 I did on the sleeves and bottom edge.
Starting at the back/right sleeve raglan join, I will knit up one for one on the back, sleeves, and bottom center of the front neck. Those are the easy places.
Jump to half-stitch seaming in 1×1 ribbing, full-stitch seaming in 1×1 ribbing, or
half-stitch seaming in 2×2 ribbing
Jump to full-stitch seaming in 1×1 ribbing, half-stitch seaming in 2×2 ribbing, or full-stitch seaming in 2×2 ribbing.
(In this series of posts, “half-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes half a stitch from each edge, and “full-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes a full stitch from each edge. See the first post for more information.)
There are two set-ups for working public-side rows of 1×1 ribbing. We can
Let’s look at both options. (Scroll to the bottom if your ribbing instructions start with P1 instead of K1.)
We’ll use some stylized stitches that show the ribbing situation at the wearer’s left side.
A half-stitch seam will consume the parts of the stitches shown in gray below,
leaving us with
Let’s “sew” those stitches together.
Still not convinced? Let’s remove the stitches not involved with the seam.
That result is trying to force the left half of a knit stitch to make nice with the right half of a purl stitch. It will not be neat, invisible, or any other desirable property of a seam in a handknit garment.
The beginning of the front won’t change, but the end of the back will change from
to
The two gray halves will disappear in the half-stitch seam,
leaving half a stitch on each side.
We’ll wind up with this result:
Since the stitches alternate knit and purl, the seam will be as invisible as a seam can be.
The other body side seam and the sleeve underarm seams will work exactly the same way.
Since we need 1×1 ribbing to start and end with K1 if we want to use half-stitch seams, then if our sweater’s instructions have 1×1 ribbing that ends with P1 on a public-side row, the fix is easy. We just cast on one more stitch at the end, then work it as a public-side knit for the entire length of the ribbing.
Have you ever come across a sweater pattern that starts off by quite bossily telling you to read through all the instructions before starting? Yes, I’m always eager to cast on and start knitting too. But if we don’t read through the complete instructions first, we may have some heartburn during the sewing-up.
If you prefer a different seaming technique than the one the designer specifies (or even just assumes you’ll use), your ribbing sewing-up will look, shall we say, less than ideal. Fortunately, the fix is very easy—if we haven’t cast on yet.
Even if the pieces are complete, there are still dodges available.
This table shows how we have to start and end each piece of a sweater for the particular combination of ribbing and sewing technique we want to use. The four specific posts show all the gory details, and they’ll explain how to alter the sweater’s directions if necessary.
Your project may use another rib pattern, like 2×1 or 3×3. Use the same technique shown in any of the posts above, making small charts and “sewing” the ribbing in the computer or on paper before you even cast on, so that you can be sure you’ll get a good result when you do the in-yarn sewing-up.
* In this series of five posts, “half-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes half a stitch from each edge, and “full-stitch seam” means any seam that consumes a full stitch from each edge. Typically, the half-stitch seam is the mattress seam, and the full-stitch seam is the backstitch seam. But each seaming method can be done the other way: mattress seams can consume a full stitch from each edge, and backstitch seams can consume only half a stitch from each edge. There are other sewing techniques as well, but AFAIK, they’ll also consume either a half or full stitch from each edge. (Unless you really like bulky seams in your handknits, there’s no point in consuming more than a single stitch from each edge.)
If you’ve already worked all the pieces and the sewing-up looks terrible, try using the “other” sewing technique just in the ribbing.
If a half-stitch seam looks bad in the ribbing, try sewing it with a full-stitch seam. If a full-stitch seam looks bad in the ribbing, try sewing it with a half-stitch seam. In the rest of the seam, you can switch back to the other seaming method.
If neither sewing-up option looks good, you can always—brace yourself—ravel.
If you worked the sweater pieces so that you bound off (instead of cast on) in the ribbing, then you just ravel in the normal way and rework the ribbing according to the table above.
Brute-Force Raveling, but Be Careful