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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
 Posted - 01/29/2009 : 1:25:18 PM
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Hi! I'm trying to convert a pattern in pieces to a seamless bottom-up pattern with sleeves and body knitted in tubes and then joined at the armholes. The problem is, I have never done this before and am totally confused about where short rows would fit into this... any tips? I am lousy at sewing... 
http://abeginningknitter.blogspot.com |
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Wen
Permanent Resident
Australia
3242 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2009 : 1:46:58 PM
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See if you can get hold of Last minute knitted gifts. There is a sweater in there that is totally seamless and bottom up. In short you knit the body and the sleeves in the round. The stitches that you would normally cast off at the armhole you leave on stitch holders to graft together later. You then put all the stitches onto 1 circular needle and off you go knitting the yoke with decreases along the raglan lines until it is the height you want. Note if you do it this way you can end up with a very wide neckline so unless you want the 'flashdance' look take care with how you decrease.
I have only knitted high necked raglan shapes seamless so I haven't come across short rows in the designs.
Wen
2009 stats: 3 FO, 8 WIP, 1 frogpond.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/kr_members/
http://wenswoolgatherings.blogspot.com/ |
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fmarrs
Guardian angel
USA
9776 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2009 : 5:07:26 PM
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Short rows have nothing to do with the joining of the pieces of the sweater. They may or may not be used in the shaping of the sweater but ignore them to join. The only problem area is the underarm area where you bind off stitches in conventional sweaters. Most directions tell you to kitchener this area at the end of the sweater, I use a three needle bind off to join these stitches as my first step in joining the sleeves to the body of the sweater. This will give you an extra stitch on the side where you finish the bind off and may or may not give you a space or hole on the side where you start the bind off. On my first round that includes the sleeves I k 2 tog to eliminate the extra stitch and pick up a stitch in the area that would leave a hole, eliminating that picked up stitch on the next round. Now place your markers for your raglan lines and you are ready to go. Another trick I use is to use 2 circular needles because the area under the arms is sometimes tight at first and if it is difficult to maneuver my needles, adding another one sometimes helps. One needle covers half a sleeve, the front, and another half a sleeve; and the other needle covers half a sleeve, the back and the other half a sleeve.
fran
http://martianmischief.blogspot.com/ |
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cpknits
Chatty Knitter
USA
297 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2009 : 6:40:15 PM
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I am knitting a sweater using this method. Once I join the sleeves to the body I will either use Elizabeth Zimmerman's % method to figure out the decreases or possibly look at one of my Lopi sweater books. Lopi does a lot of their sweaters in this fashion.
Carol, Wisconsin |
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arlinem
Gabber Extraordinaire
USA
442 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2009 : 9:37:57 PM
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i generally make all my sweaters seamless from the bottom up whether they are raglan, drop shoulder or set in sleeves. i don't always work the sleeves separately and join at the underarm. i prefer to pick the sleeves up and work from the shoulder down. i'm a big fan of priscilla gibson-robert's method and elizabeth zimmerman's percentages with a little bit of adjustment.
short rows would be used for a set in sleeve when you work from the shoulder down. beginning at the sleeve cap you would work a few stitches on each side until you reach approximately 2/3 the total number of stitches you would need for the top of the sleeve or about the place on the armscye where the double notches would appear. |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
Posted - 01/29/2009 : 9:44:42 PM
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Thank you so much, you all are so helpful. One question... could you please elaborate more on set-in bottom-up sleeves? or is this possible? The reason I'm asking is that the original pattern isn't a raglan. And it has extensive shaping at the cuffs that I don't think could be easily reversed to a top-down technique. Thank you again!!! You all are great over here. Also, is leaving 10% of stitches for underarm essential?
http://abeginningknitter.blogspot.com |
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fmarrs
Guardian angel
USA
9776 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 05:22:15 AM
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Work the body of the sweater to the underarm, then work the front and back separately back and forth as you would flat knitting. Join at the shoulder. Work the sleeves separately and then sew the sleeves in place.
fran
http://martianmischief.blogspot.com/ |
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Dicksie
Permanent Resident
USA
1995 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 10:54:04 AM
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Elizabeth Zimmerman's "Knitting without Tears" is the manual for seamless sweaters. Besides being a delightful read, it's full of little tips. She pioneered EPS (Elizabeth's Percentage System), which illustrates the relationship between your measurements. It's readily available, but I would recommend her daughter, Meg Swansen's, shop at Schoolhouse Press, which EZ founded.
http://tourdirector.smugmug.com/gallery/529635 |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
Posted - 01/30/2009 : 8:19:02 PM
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Thanks. I also see in French Girl Knits that you can do a set-in sleeve using bottom-up construction and short rows. I just don't know how to do it exactly... I understand now about putting the normally bound-off stitches on a holder and then grafting them...
http://abeginningknitter.blogspot.com |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 10:15:32 AM
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Another question... is it possible to have the front and back necks be different when you are working in the round from the bottom up? (I have done this from the top down so I assume there's a way... I just knitted front and back until the back was higher than the front, so do I just do this backwards?)
http://abeginningknitter.blogspot.com |
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2totangle
Permanent Resident
1212 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 11:21:29 AM
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Getting the back neck higher than the front is where your short rows come into play. If you've got a patterned yoke, you may want to place them before and/or after the patterned section. Use your row gauge to determine how many short rows to work based on how much higher you want the back neck to be. I've run the first set around to about where the sleeves met the body in the front, then stair-stepped the remaining sets of short rows (usually a couple of sets) back by 5-10 sts, but all this will depend on your gauge and the body you're trying to fit.
All the above suggestions from others are excellent. Two other sources I've found invaluable are Sidna Farley's out-of-print Seamless Sweaters and Priscilla Gibson-Roberts's Knitting in the Old Way. Used copies of Farley's booklet are insanely expensive, but my local library has a copy. Good luck!
Suzanne
Flick pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2totangle/
Ravelry project page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/2totangle |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
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2totangle
Permanent Resident
1212 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 2:46:37 PM
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pianogal, I haven't done cap sleeves at all (except as separate, sewn-on pieces), so I'm sorry that I don't have any guidance for you there. I do tend to use short rows wherever one part needs to be a little bigger than another (for example, I've learned from Elizabeth Zimmermann to use them right above the bottom ribbing on the back so that it doesn't hike up). You can always tink them back if you don't like them.
Suzanne
Flick pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2totangle/
Ravelry project page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/2totangle |
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arlinem
Gabber Extraordinaire
USA
442 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2009 : 3:58:39 PM
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there is one other place short rows come into play and no one has mentioned it yet. it's for women who are well endowed. short rows should be placed just past the underarm seam to add a little length to the front for anyone whose sweaters tend to pull up in the front. how much would depend on how much length you need.
by the way, if you are sewing in your sleeves, even if you make them in the round, you're not going to use short rows because where the cap will start (the underarm) you will put the underarm seam on a holder or bind them off and work back and forth on the rest of the sleeve shaping the cap as you go. since i have never had a firm grasp on the dynamics of shaping a sleeve cap, i prefer to make them from the top down as in my earlier post. i wish you well. it sounds like you are having a lot of fun and learning a lot all at the same time. |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
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Dances with Needles
Chatty Knitter
197 Posts |
Posted - 02/04/2009 : 09:41:08 AM
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When you are making a set in sleave with a circular bottom up sweater, you can do a very effective job with any raglan style pattern by using different rates of decrease. If you decrease the body every fourth row while decreasing the sleave every other row, the sleave will end very close to where the shoulder will be. the short rows would be on the top of the shoulder to put the proper slant to the shoulder.
DWN |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2009 : 12:35:33 PM
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Just wanted to say, I never did figure this out, but I just looked at the Spring Interweave Knits and there's a bottom-up non-raglan short-sleeved sweater in there with short-row shaping for neck and sleeves. I don't really like this particular sweater (not a fan of garter stitch neck edgings) but maybe it will help me to knit it just to understand the construction of the short rows.
http://abeginningknitter.blogspot.com |
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fmarrs
Guardian angel
USA
9776 Posts |
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pianogal
Seriously Hooked
629 Posts |
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2totangle
Permanent Resident
1212 Posts |
Posted - 02/28/2009 : 11:59:45 AM
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To my mind, the classic "trinity" of edgings are ribbing, garter stitch, and seed stitch, but you can make edgings using any pattern that prevents the piece from curling to the knit side. The trick is to choose a stitch pattern that has enough purled stitches to balance out the tendency of the knit stitches to curl forward. If you still get some curling, there are some other tricks you can employ, such as adding a crocheted edging. Meg Swansen also uses "speed bumps" to prevent I-cord edges from curling, wherein she picks up and knits around the edges between I-cord and knit piece, then immediately casts off the picked-up stitches.
Suzanne
Flick pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2totangle/
Ravelry project page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/2totangle |
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Seamless bottom-up?
