The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: Fleecewife on October 18, 2012, 01:02:06 pm
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Carrying on from another thread, can you tell me more about knitting jumpers from the top down please ? I usually knit with a circular needle and make the pattern up as I go along, so do I just reverse everything? How do I start?
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Here is what I do:
1. Provisional cast on, across the shoulders, for the back. Knit down to bottom of armholes. Stick stitches on waste yarn.
2. Pick up shoulders and knit down the front, doing whatever neck you want, til you get to the bottom of the armholes.
3. Put all stitches onto one circular, knit body to length required, shaping where needed.
4. Pick up round one armhole, knit to bottom of sleeve, shaping as you go. Do the same for the other sleeve.
The huge benefit is this, that apart from whatever you want to do with the neckline, is the jumper done. No sewing ;D
For a cardi, just knit back and forth instead of round and round.
I found the book 'Custom knits' by Wendy Bernard really useful. It's all top down and positively encourages 'make it up as you go along'.
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I'm just knitting a raglan jumper - while trying to figure out how to explain how I do it, I found this pattern online... http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html (http://www.woolworks.org/patterns/raglan.html)
I think this is more or less how I do it. Basically, I start at the neck with a number of stitches that can be divided by 6; one part each for the sleeves, two for back and front. After the ribbing or collar you increase by one each side of sleeve or back/front, so that means increasing by 8 each second row. And then knit for as long as you need to get to below armhole - then divide into sleeves and main body - and decrease on the sleeves by one each side of the "seam" every fourth row. And knit until desired length is reached - or you run out of wool!
Perfect for kids' jumpers. Since they are identical back and front, you can just turn them round if you've been messy with your ketchup... ;D
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Sis is getting me the Custom Knits book for Christmas, but in advance of having it - how do those who do these top-down jumpers cast off? Sis has a friend has done one, and said that her cast off didn't make as neat an edge as a cast on would've done, so wondered if there was any special cast off to use?
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I think this is more or less how I do it. Basically, I start at the neck with a number of stitches that can be divided by 6; one part each for the sleeves, two for back and front. After the ribbing or collar you increase by one each side of sleeve or back/front, so that means increasing by 8 each second row. And then knit for as long as you need to get to below armhole - then divide into sleeves and main body - and decrease on the sleeves by one each side of the "seam" every fourth row. And knit until desired length is reached - or you run out of wool
It must be an old German pattern - exactly the way I was taught by my mother, and she in turn by hers.. Still my standard way of doing jumpers...
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Here are a couple of stretchy cast-offs (http://www.knittingdaily.com/blogs/daily/archive/2008/07/30/a-stretchier-bind-off.aspx) for that situation. The other one, which looks particularly good on rib, is Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind-off (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall09/FEATjssbo.php) or JSSBO.
There are YouTube videos of both (the first of the first link is called the lace bind-off).
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Thanks jaykay! :) I'll pass those along.