Knitting chat - ft. Annpan and Brij, guest appearance: smbm

[Brij]

Annpan was asking about knitting and thinks she might forget what i told her, so I'm just posting this up for handy reference. I edited out the references to Bill and Ted, the much praising of me and the odd unrelated comment and put pretty colours in it

I'll put it on a proper blog one day and link to it for all the other knitters on this site.

(23:36:48) annpan: swatch up??

(23:37:08) smbm: is that knitting lingo?

(23:37:14) brij: yeah, like, to find out how many stitches you will need to cast on. knit a sampler, a swatch

(23:37:16) smbm: it sounds pretty cool whatever it means?


(23:37:28) annpan: No I really need someone to say co 68, ss 57 rows

(23:37:54) brij: aww annpan! i'll write you up some patterns! but you'd still have to swatch it

(23:38:06) annpan: what does swatch it mean????

(23:38:13) brij: knit a swatch

(23:38:58) brij: like, pick out whatever wool you want to use, then the appropriate needles, then C/O say two dozen stitches and knit until it's about 3" long

(23:39:11) ***annpan taught herself how to knit and doesn't know the lingo

(23:39:20) brij: just so you know how many stitches and how many rows you are getting per inch

(23:39:31) ***brij has only been knitting since christmas!

(23:39:50) annpan: how do you get from there to knitting that jumper you made for your mum?

(23:40:24) brij: that was the only pattern i have ever followed, i started at the bottom, then stopped following the pattern after the waist ribbing, then just made it up

(23:41:37) brij: so say you want to do a similar jumper, annpan, the most cruicial bit for the fit is going to be the waist ribbing. so swatch up some 2x2 ribbing, figure out how many stitches you need to cast on to make it big enough (ie waist size plus 2") and you're off

(23:41:58) annpan: honestly... I have just been knitting one cardigan since christmas and hate it, so I am ripping it out, cause I love the wool

(23:42:25) brij: then swatch up and make up your own pattern... it'll give you a better fit if you do it how you want it

(23:42:38) annpan: but how do you do the arms... and the neck line

(23:43:07) annpan: sorry smbm.... we'll stop in a minute

(23:43:30) brij: well figure out where you want the neckline to be and knit it there :p

(23:44:05) ***smbm is also watching Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure so doesn't mind.

(23:44:17) brij: i usually decrease one at each side every two rows for a deep v-neck, slipping a stitch at each edge. then the slipped stitches can be picked up to add ribbing, or left to curl in slightly

(23:45:06) brij: and the arms, just slip stitch around the arm holes (which are usually about 9" deep on each side) then you can just pick them up, and decrease every 2 rows until the arm is as wide as you want it

(23:45:40) annpan: can you put this in ish please... I'll loose it in the chatroom brij

(23:46:07) brij: it's just sort of common sense. if you aren't sure about a bit you're coming up to, run a thread through it and then you can rip it back to the thread really easily

(23:46:29) brij: i'll copy-paste this convo to a forum post :p

[Annpan]

thanks brij.... don't look like an eejit, indeed

[the.fee.fairy]

Fascinating!

Brij, you're so good already! I've been knitting for about a year or two, and i#m nowhere near that knowledgeable!

I'm doing the 50 washcloths-A-Long on Craftster Annpann. Join Craftster and have a go!

[MKG]

I hear MI6 are still trying to translate that lot

[Annpan]

lol

I have been searching for more info on knitting without a pattern (apparently that is code for some sex ed thing in america )

I wasn't able to find much more info...

what I was looking to ask is - do you just knit the body straight (I mean at the arms and the shoulders) I have started a chunky ribbed number for OH. I have reached about the height that you would usually adjust for the sleeves. Most of the things I have knitted have lots of shaping in them (I did lots of things for me when I was preggers so shaped for bumps and boobs and arms and neck, not much straight knitting)

As for Craftster, It doesn't appeal somehow I have browsed around it but I find everyone here so much more straight talking and friendly

[Brij]

Annpan, it can be done lots of ways. Personally, I have quite broad shoulders and a small rib cage, so I normally bind off 1"1/2-2" under the arm. Then I decrease 1"-2" (a baggy jumper needs more shaping here, in my opinion, a tight jumper needs less) at each side of each hole by decreasing one stitch every second row. I prefer to offset these so that they are the 3rd or 4th stitch from the end, and the very end stitch is slipped (I find at the beginning of the round easiest, though I don't suppose it makes much difference). These slipped stitches are very easy to pick up to start the sleeve at the shoulder, thus eliminating any clash between the number of stitches to sew on to and the number of stitches a sleeve ends with. However, I've also seen patterns that suggest binding off a few stitches for the underarm and then just knitting the rest of the arm-hole square, so that can be done too (I think the jumper I did for mum may have been supposed to be like that, but I think I'd well and truly abandoned the pattern by then anyway).

Probably the best thing to do is to find a jumper that you own that you particularly like the fit of, measure it up and draw out how it would be flat. That way you can visualise no problem how you like it to fit, and you can figure out where the decreases and binding off goes from there. In my experience, decreasing one stitch on each side of each sleeve hole every two rows gives a nice smooth shaping, though that does depend on how tall or short your stitches are... which takes us back to swatching

Thanks, Fee Fairy! I'd be tempted to do the knit-along too, but I get too competitive and it probably wouldn't end well...