knitting – Page 17 – Lindy's Knits & Laces

Mirrored Cables – Front Cross & Back Cross CablesMirrored Cables – Front Cross & Back Cross Cables

May 13, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comment | 11:03 am

Front Cross and Back Cross Cable Stitches are mirror images of each other. The Front Cross cable twists to the left, while the Back Cross twists to the right. Both cables are done over four stitches.

In the sample – I have knitted a swatch with 3 Front Cross Cables and 3 Back Cross Cables to demonstrate how they mirror each other and also to show how these two cables would look in a ribbing. Remember that cables are usually separated by a few purl stitches in most textured pattern designs. In this swatch, I separated the cables by 2 purl stitches on each side. (I also blocked this swatch and stretched it to separate the cables. If you were using these cables as a ribbing, you would not want to block your garment this way.)

The Front Cross Cable is often written in patterns as “C4F”. To knit this cable, you slip the first two stitches onto a cable needle and hold them in the front of your knitting while you knit the next two stitches. Then you knit the two stitches off the cable needle. This results in the cable twisting to the left.

Tension can be an issue here, as many knitters tend to stretch the last stitch of the four a bit too much and end up with a looser stitch on the left edge of the needle. If you look closely at the left edge of the cable in the picture above, you will see that I do have looser stitches on the left edge.

Montse Stanley, in the “Knitters Handbook”, suggests knitting through the back of this stitch, rather than then front will tighten it up. You must remember to purl through the back loop again on the next row or you will have a twisted stitch if you do this, however.

The Back Cross Cable is often written in patterns as “C4B”. To knit this cable, you slip the first two stitches onto a cable needle and hold them in the back of your knitting while you knit the next two stitches. Then you knit the two stitches of the cable needle. This results in the cable twisting to the right. The same tension issues occur with this cable as with the Front Cross Cable.

In my swatch, I have varied the number of rows between cable stitch repeats to demonstrate how the appearance of the cables changes with the number of rows. The first two cables are based upon a four row repeat (meaning that the cable was done on the fourth row) and the last two cables are based upon a six row repeat.

These two cable patterns are very versatile – uses include: all-over cable patterning in a sweater (the popular “baby cable” sweaters found in stores today), a border for another textured pattern in an Aran style sweater, a decorative ribbing for a pullover sweater, the patterning found in my Cable Rib socks. I’m certain you can find many more examples as you look through sweater and sock patterns.

A Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock YarnA Study of Pooling in a Variegated Sock Yarn

May 5, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 12:38 pm

Several days ago, I decided to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks using Serenity Sock Weight Yarn (Premier Yarns) in the colorway Amethyst. This was a yarn I had purchased at my local Hobby Lobby and had been sitting in my sock yarn stash for a few months. In the skein, the yarn appears to be a mix of greys and purples, and I thought it would result in a striping of the socks. The label does not indicate that the yarn is “self-striping”, but the picture on the label shows a sock with an interesting variation of stripes.

Since I had never knit with this yarn, I knit a circular swatch to determine needle size and gauge before starting on my socks – and this is where my study in “Pooling” began. I started with US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and cast on 64 stitches (which is what I would use for my socks with a gauge of 7 stitches per inch). As I worked on the swatch, I noticed that the yarn was not knitting up in the stripes the way I had anticipated – in fact, it seemed to be predominately purple on one side of the swatch and predominately grey on the other side.

Obviously, I had some “pooling “ going on. Pooling is an effect that occurs when a variegated yarn knits up in “pools” of color, rather than in stripes. Now, I wasn’t really sure I liked the effect – and my stitch gauge was 6.25 spi, rather than the 7 spi I wanted.

So, I decided to do a second swatch with fewer stitches, a smaller needle – and because I had read about pooling in a Rav thread, I also decided to knit from the outside of the skein instead of the inside. I cast on 52 stitches on size US 1.5 (2.50 mm) needles and knit away – and I got more striping – not even stripes, but definitely stripes on both sides of the swatch.

So, I took a picture of the two swatches and posted a comment on Ravlery under the thread, “Examples of Pooling Good & Bad”, stating what I had observed along with my assumption that the change was probably due to knitting from the outside of the skein – and completely ignoring the fact that I had changed the number of stitches in the swatch and this might also be contributing to the way the colors were knitting up.

I must admit, I did not anticipate much of a response to my comment in this thread. But I received several. It’s one of the things I love about Ravelry – fellow knitters are always willing to share and question things. Anyway – after reading the comments, I decided I needed to do a little more work before I could actually answer my fellow Ravelers’ questions.

Off I went to swatch again – this time I decided to start from the inside of the skein, use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles and begin by casting on 72 stitches. I knit approximately 1.5 inches, then purled and decreased the number of stitches to 64 stitches, knit another 1.5 inches, purled and decreased to 54 stitches and knit another 1.5 inches. Here’s a picture showing how the yarn pooled with different numbers of stitches.

So – in response to Robocass and Hypercycloid, who asked me if the difference might be due more to the difference in the number of stitches in my swatches: Clearly, the number of stitches used results in very different color patterning and it doesn’t really matter whether I knit from the inside or the outside of the skein.

Hypercycloid also asked about the length of each of the colors in the yarn. Hmm – I hadn’t thought about that, so I got out the measuring tape and discovered that each purple section of the yarn was approximately 19 inches, while the grey sections were approximately 12 inches. Not quite, but almost a 3 to 2 ratio. Statnerd suggested I count the number of grey stitches compared to the purple stitches in my wider swatch – I did and ended up with 27 stitches of grey to 37 stitches of purple. Again, this is close to a 3 to 2 ratio of purple to grey. All of you were correct in your observations that the colors shift around the circumference of the swatches – and due to the differences in the number of stitches, the colors stack up very differently for different numbers of stitches.

Zgma commented:

“It doesn’t look like a self-striping yarn to me. The striping you got in the top sample is a result of the colors pooling in a way that looks like stripes, not actual “self-striping”. When yarns are labeled self-striping, it is because the runs of color are large enough that for the project intended (as in, socks for self-striping sock yarn), the color will last for all the stitches in at least one round or row, usually more. When a particular color (for instance, the black in your sock samples) lasts for part of a row, but then in the next row the color occurs before or after it did in the previous row in such a manner that it looks like striping, it doesn’t mean that the yarn is self-striping – just that it is prone to pooling in a stripey way.”

Yep, you are right about that.

To each of those that took the time to comment — thanks! I learned a great deal about pooling and variegated yarns.

I did a little internet surfing on the subject, as well. I found two informative posts about Pooling — One from the Yarn Harlot and the other from Knitting Sutra.

So – I am not really sure if I like this particular yarn – but I have decided to proceed with using it to knit a pair of plain vanilla socks. I am going to use US 2 (2.75 mm) needles with a gauge of 6.25 spi and cast on 54 stitches (this should fit my foot). I’ll post pictures of the final result.

FO: Cable Rib SocksFO: Cable Rib Socks

May 2, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 8:00 am

I finally finished the Cable Rib Socks! Yes, this is the unfortunate pair of socks that was eaten by the Roomba. (See post here.).

I set this project aside for some time to work on other project. Typically for this kind of project, I would pick it up every now and again, but not spend much time on it — thus, progress was very slow. In addition, every since the Roomba incident, this pair of socks seemed to be prone to problems (errors?) — in fact, I think I frogged each sock back several rows at least twice. So, it is nice that they are finally done — and I am happy with the result.

The socks fit well, and they look nice on my feet. They were knit in Knit Picks Risata, Baby Doll colorway — it’s a nice cotton sock yarn and I love the bright rosy pink color. Pattern was Cable Ribbon Socks by Classic Elite Yarns.

Designing a Sweater without a PatternDesigning a Sweater without a Pattern

April 24, 2010 | Lindy | 0 Comments | 7:31 am

In previous posts, I have discussed how to use Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Percentage System (EPS) to design and knit a sweater and how to modify a written pattern to adjust for changes in sizing and/or gauge. Today, I will briefly describe the process of designing a sweater without a written pattern. I learned this process in depth when I first knitted a sweater using my knitting machine. Knitting garments on a knitting machine requires extensive set-up and calculations before you can even begin to knit. Regardless of whether you are hand knitting or machine knitting – the process and calculations are the same.

As in the previous design techniques, you start with a good set of body measurements and a gauge swatch to determine your stitch and row gauge. You will also need to factor in the amount of ease you wish to have in your completed sweater.

Any sweater has several basic elements: The front & back, the sleeves and the neck. Sweaters come in two basic forms – the pullover and the cardigan. If you take a minute to think through all the sweaters you have seen, you will realize that all of them are some variation of these two basic forms. So, let’s start by breaking down the elements of a basic pullover sweater.

Elements of a Pullover Sweater:

The Front & Back – in a very basic design, the front and the back are the same up to the point where one shapes the neckline. The Front and Back make up the tube of fabric that goes around the entire body – thus, the back consists of one-half of the total number of stitches needed for the body/chest measurement and the front has the other half. In our basic design, the back/front is essentially a rectangle – and you need to determine the width and the length from your own measurements. If you plan to knit this sweater in the round, then you will calculate the total number of stitches based upon the body/chest measurement plus ease. [(BM + Ease) X SPI]. If you plan to knit this sweater in pieces and then sew the pieces together, you will calculate the number of stitches needed for the front/back by dividing the Body/chest measurement by two and then adding in Ease and multiplying by your stitch gauge. [((BM/2) + Ease) X SPI]. For a set-in sleeve, you will also need to calculate the shaping of the armhole. When knitting in the round, at the point you begin shaping the armholes, it is best to knit flat and knit the front and back separately.
The Neck – the most basic neck for a pullover sweater is a round or crew neck shape. In our basic sweater design – a portion of the stitches of the center back are used for the back of the neck, while in the front there is some shaping done to make the front of the neck slightly lower than the back. The stitches not used in the neck are used for the shoulders and form the shoulder seams of the sweater. It is best to use live stitches for necklines. This allows you the needed stretch for the fabric to go over the head of the wearer. One must also keep in mind that the average woman’s head has a circumference of 22 inches. Thus, there needs to sufficient width allocated to the neck to allow the head to pass through it.Back Neck – for the basic sweater pattern, the back does not have any shaping to it. It is simply divided into three sections: Left shoulder, Neck and right shoulder. The number of stitches assigned to the back neck stitches is somewhat proportional to the chest measurement. Generally, the wider the chest, the larger the neck circumference. In this basic sweater design, there should be an equal number of stitches allocated to the shoulders, with the remaining stitches placed on hold for the neck. You determine the number of back neck stitches by multiplying your stitch gauge by the width of the back neck. You then subtract the number of back stitches from the total number of stitches for the back at the shoulders – this will give you the number of stitches for the shoulders. This number needs to be divisible by 2, so you may need to take 1 stitch from your neck stitches to even it out.
Front Neck – the shaping for the front neck begins below the last row of the shoulder. For women, the depth of the neckline starts 2.5 to 3 inches below the shoulder, for men, the depth is 3 inches to 3.5 inches and for children the depth is 1.5 to 2.5 inches. This depth is entirely a matter of preference. The front neck is shaped as a semi-circle by gradually eliminating stitches on either side of the center front neck stitches. Thus, the center front stitches are placed on hold and then decreases are done on either side of these stitches as you knit up to the shoulders. This shaping will occur concurrently with the armhole shaping
The Sleeves – the most common styles of sleeve in commercial sweaters are the drop-sleeve and the set-in sleeve. For this design, I will cover the set-in sleeve. A Set-in Sleeve joins the body of the sweater at the armhole and the top of the shoulder seam. Set-in sleeves require shaping at the top of the sleeve itself as well as corresponding shaping in the front and back. The shaping is made by a series of bind-offs, increases and/or decreases. To design your sleeve you must have your sleeve length, the width of the sleeve at the armhole, the width of the sleeve at the elbow and the width of the sleeve at the wrist. You also need the depth of the armhole. There are quite a few calculations required to be able to knit a properly fitting set-in sleeve. You begin by calculating the shaping of the sleeve from the wrist to the underarm and then calculate the shaping required to form the rounded sleeve cap. Shaping is achieved by a series of increases from the wrist to the underarm, followed by bind-offs and decreases to form the sleeve cap.

Now let’s look at a basic cardigan sweater.

Cardigans are most often knitted flat – either in separate pieces or in as a one wide piece on a long circular needle. They can be knitted in the round using a steek to separate the two fronts when finishing the sweater. Shaping for armholes and neckline are mirrored for the right and left fronts. In addition, there is a knitted band of fabric that overlaps at the center front – this band can be knitted concurrently with the front using a pattern stitch or can be added to the front by picking up stitches along the center front edge after the front has been knitted.

The calculations for this sweater are essentially the same as for our basic pullover – with the exception of the front. A cardigan sweater has two front pieces that meet and overlap in the center of the garment. This means that each front piece is one-half of the front piece of a pullover sweater, plus some added width for the overlapping parts(buttonbands or borders). In our basic sweater design, you simply add the desired width of the buttonband to each front piece. For example, the front on our pullover measures 40 inches. For our cardigan, each front piece would be half of that or 20 inches and the buttonband would be 2 inches wide: 20 + 2 = 22 inches. My Excel Spreadsheet includes a section on calculating the fronts for a cardigan.

I have created an Excel Spreadsheet for all the calculations required for a basic pullover with a set-in sleeve. Click here to download the spreadsheet: Sweater Calculator.

Using this calculator and your own gauge, you now have all the calculations required to knit your pullover sweater. You can knit this sweater from the top down or from the bottom up. The shaping for a top-down sweater is done in the reverse order of a bottom-down sweater.

Terms of Use: You may electronically copy and print to hard copy portions of the spreadsheet for the sole purpose of using materials it contains for informational and non-commercial, personal use only. Any other use of this spreadsheet — including any commercial use, reproduction for purposes other than described above, modification, distribution, republication, display, or performance — without the prior written permission of Lindy’s Knits & Laces is strictly prohibited.

Today I have briefly outlined the basics of designing your own sweater using two basic sweater designs. From these two basic designs, you can create a sweater according to your own measurements out of any weight yarn. I recommend you give it a try. Listed below are some references for your further exploration – I have only scratched the surface of this topic. Happy Knitting.

If you find this post and/or my spreadsheet helpful , please leave me a comment. Thanks!

For further exploration – check out these sources:

Maggie Righetti, Sweater Design in Plain English
Leslye Solomon, The Uncomplicated Knitting Machine
Deborah Newton, Designing Knitwear.
Barbara G. Walker,Knitting from the Top Down.
Vogue Knitting