Tag Archives: Shaping

Designing: Body Shaping and Sleeves for Sweater 2

The sleeves and body will be split on round 85. I need to figure out how each part will be worked.

Whichever of the sleeves or body I work first, I’ll do a provisional cast-on with waste yarn for the underarm stitches. Then when I want to do the other part, I’ll remove the PCO and capture those live sts on the needle along with that part’s held sts from the yoke. Note that because I’ll have one less stitch when I remove the PCO, I’ll do a yarnover right in the middle, to add the stitch on which I’ll do the same afterthought phony seams as on the U-Neck. {add link to that post} Continue reading...

Designing: Yoke Shaping for Sweater 2

Working EPS top-down means I have to do increase rather than decrease rounds for the yoke shaping. I will also finish all the shaping very quickly: by the time I’ve worked the upper half of the yoke depth. It’s really kind of crazy when you think about it, and it can be a little intimidating working an EPS bottom-up the first time or three. Nevertheless, her design works wonderfully. Now I just need to work it in the opposite direction. Continue reading...

Working: Splitting the Sleeves from the Body

Round 87 is the biggest moment of the entire project, where I split the sleeve and body stitches and do the underarm cast-ons.

I had decided to duplicate my techniques from bottom-up seamless sweaters as much as possible in this top-down project, and when working bottom-up, I leave the underarm stitches of body and sleeves live for later grafting (weaving, Kitchener stitch), which completes the seamlessness of the FO. On this particular garment, worked with zero ease and in a non-resilient yarn, having seamless underarms should help me put it on and take it off in addition to being much more comfortable in the actual wearing. Continue reading...

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. Continue reading...