The Knitters Thread

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Doing cables for the first time 

<snip>

It is for a cricket pullover for my Great Nephew: I've done him bootees and mittens and a non-cabled pullover, but when his Dad said that would be perfect for the cricket this summer I thought I should do The Real Thing. 

And now I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I used the original pullover pattern, but realised I needed to increase the number of stitches to allow for the cabling to pull it in a bit. So I did the right no. of stitches for the ribbing, and then increased. But I may have got carried away ... 

The pattern says 83 stitches, but for some reason I can't now fathom I have 103, which seems like far too many for 4 cables of 4 stitches each, on a 4 row repeat. It goes like this on the right side:

19 plain stitches
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
25 plain stitches
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
19 plain stitches

So I think I'm going to have to work out on knitting graph paper how much to decrease for the armholes and for the V-neck, and what effect that will have on the no. of stitches I need for the ribbing. And I've found a site where I can download some, and even checked which orientation to use it in (been reminded that knit stitches are wider than they are tall, which I find slightly counter-intuitive because to my eye they look the other way round. 

This may end up a very odd shaped pullover. Any tips appreciated! 

At 3 am, having a bad night, I realised that my only problem is that the shoulder seams may be longer than they should be - picking up the stitches around the neck and armholes isn't going to change. D'oh, teach me to be online just before bed ... 

And if the shoulder seams ARE looking too long, I can always increase the decreases. It's partly where the cables are going to fall, which I may calculate in advance with that knitting paper I printed. 

alicef

@PipneyJane Confession - I still knit on 2 needles rather than in the round, even for colourwork AND I drop my yarn.  The trick for me is to ensure I always carry the yarn such that I maintain colour dominance.   I have a small colourwork project that I have in mind to try to teach myself to knit in the round & steek - it's on the list!!!

@Savvy_Sue wow 12 colours!   I think the most colours I've used was 9 plus background colour, (a Patricia Roberts sweater pattern).  

Katiehound

Just googled the tape thingie (and yes, some call it snap tape.) seems to be sold by Dunelm if you have a local store- all the others seem to be mail order

alicef

Thank you @Katiehound for Dunelm suggestion - there is one in town - I'll check it out.  I have decided that I need tape with 10cm popper spacing - just need to sit down and work out costs

PipneyJane

alicef said:

Thank you @Katiehound for Dunelm suggestion - there is one in town - I'll check it out.  I have decided that I need tape with 10cm popper spacing - just need to sit down and work out costs

@alicef fingers crossed.  Please let us know if Dunelm has the 10cm spaced popper tape.  (I could do with some, too.)

- Pip

alicef

@PipneyJane will do.

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Savvy_Sue said:

Doing cables for the first time 

<snip>

It is for a cricket pullover for my Great Nephew: I've done him bootees and mittens and a non-cabled pullover, but when his Dad said that would be perfect for the cricket this summer I thought I should do The Real Thing. 

And now I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I used the original pullover pattern, but realised I needed to increase the number of stitches to allow for the cabling to pull it in a bit. So I did the right no. of stitches for the ribbing, and then increased. But I may have got carried away ... 

The pattern says 83 stitches, but for some reason I can't now fathom I have 103, which seems like far too many for 4 cables of 4 stitches each, on a 4 row repeat. It goes like this on the right side:

19 plain stitches
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
25 plain stitches
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
4 cable
4 contrast
19 plain stitches

So I think I'm going to have to work out on knitting graph paper how much to decrease for the armholes and for the V-neck, and what effect that will have on the no. of stitches I need for the ribbing. And I've found a site where I can download some, and even checked which orientation to use it in (been reminded that knit stitches are wider than they are tall, which I find slightly counter-intuitive because to my eye they look the other way round. 

This may end up a very odd shaped pullover. Any tips appreciated! 

At 3 am, having a bad night, I realised that my only problem is that the shoulder seams may be longer than they should be - picking up the stitches around the neck and armholes isn't going to change. D'oh, teach me to be online just before bed ... 

And if the shoulder seams ARE looking too long, I can always increase the decreases. It's partly where the cables are going to fall, which I may calculate in advance with that knitting paper I printed. 

So, a few more unpicks later, I'm on the home straight with the back: the shoulder seams are going to be 5 stitches wider than they should be, but they'll have the full 2 cables on each. What I did was to decrease a few more times on the armhole edge than the pattern said, and then go straight. I hope it will be OK ... Just got to make sure I do roughly the same on the fronts. Ho hum ... 

alicef

@Savvy_Sue I feel your pain with decreases.  With my latest knit, I misread the neck/armhole decreases and had to rip back rows.  2nd time round I mapped out the decreases on paper and crossed out as I completed a row.

Only other neck side to be completed, ends sewn in, blocked, neck & armhole ribbing done and sew together - all before my KAL starts end  first week May!!   Hmmmm....

YorksLass

Another one here who didn't read the pattern properly!  I usually knit one sleeve and then the back to make sure I have enough yarn to finish the garment but on a recent project I noticed the back seemed to be getting far longer than it should be.  When I checked I'd done the first set of raglan sleeve decreases on only the first row of 6 sets of 4 rows instead of every row over 22 rows.    I've used this pattern lots of times before so can only put it down to brain fog!

PipneyJane

I have a similar problem.  You may have noticed that I haven’t posted any “finished” pictures of Simple - But So Attractive, even though I finished knitting it at Easter… Well, it turns out that my sleeveheads are too small.  The shaping specified really was for the top of the sleevehead, not for the whole thing.  There is no underarm shaping in the pattern.  Problem is:  I knit my sleeves in the round, so now I need to work out how far back to frog them, before knitting flat.

This one has gone into time out until I can concentrate and don’t have chemo-brain.

- Pip