trusting my knitting
20 Jan 2007 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatOver the weekend I knitted a hood for my mom out of Crystal Palace "Poof" (thanks ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
leandra333. I didn't use a pattern; I started making a triangle and then began to knit more or less straight up and then did a short row or two and decreased, trying it on as I went. Then I picked up stitches along the sides to make earflaps and finished off with icord for ties. She loved it.
A couple of days ago I seamed up a cardigan I've been knitting. The pattern called for seaming it after installing the sleeves, but I wanted to make sure it fit reasonably well first. I eyeballed the sleeve openings, and tried on the sweater after seaming it up, and they are just right, no binding or huge gaps. The seams look nice from both sides. (I used slip stitch crochet to seam them.)
Because I eyeballed the sleeve openings, I don't trust the pattern when it comes to how many stitches to cast on for the sleeve. So I thought "Hm, why not pick up stitches for the sleeve?"
I wasn't sure if this was something that was done, so I looked at the knitting books within reach (the book that the cardigan pattern is from, and something called The Big Book of Knitting). Neither of them mentioned it, but the Big Book of Knitting had lots of information about picking up stitches for collars, and I thought "If you can do it for collars, surely you can do it for sleeves. What the hell." So I did it on one sleeve and knit a few rounds and it looks OK so far.
This morning I googled for "pick up stitches sleeves" just to make sure someone else had done it somewhere along the line, and sure enough they had:
http://www.morehousefarm.com/Knitting/Tips/Round/
Now, it took me several years and reading at least 50 different knitting books to get to this point, but I'm still pretty happy with myself. And also bemused that a book called The Big Book of Knitting doesn't mention picking up stitches for sleeves at all, as far as I can tell.
leandra333. I didn't use a pattern; I started making a triangle and then began to knit more or less straight up and then did a short row or two and decreased, trying it on as I went. Then I picked up stitches along the sides to make earflaps and finished off with icord for ties. She loved it. A couple of days ago I seamed up a cardigan I've been knitting. The pattern called for seaming it after installing the sleeves, but I wanted to make sure it fit reasonably well first. I eyeballed the sleeve openings, and tried on the sweater after seaming it up, and they are just right, no binding or huge gaps. The seams look nice from both sides. (I used slip stitch crochet to seam them.)
Because I eyeballed the sleeve openings, I don't trust the pattern when it comes to how many stitches to cast on for the sleeve. So I thought "Hm, why not pick up stitches for the sleeve?"
I wasn't sure if this was something that was done, so I looked at the knitting books within reach (the book that the cardigan pattern is from, and something called The Big Book of Knitting). Neither of them mentioned it, but the Big Book of Knitting had lots of information about picking up stitches for collars, and I thought "If you can do it for collars, surely you can do it for sleeves. What the hell." So I did it on one sleeve and knit a few rounds and it looks OK so far.
This morning I googled for "pick up stitches sleeves" just to make sure someone else had done it somewhere along the line, and sure enough they had:
http://www.morehousefarm.com/Knitting/Tips/Round/
Now, it took me several years and reading at least 50 different knitting books to get to this point, but I'm still pretty happy with myself. And also bemused that a book called The Big Book of Knitting doesn't mention picking up stitches for sleeves at all, as far as I can tell.