Darlington, UK
I like making things but most of the time I'm just making mistakes.
I have decided to start all over again with the jumper as I can’t get it to work out how I wanted it to.
I’m going to have a think about it and read through your suggestions again before I decide how to do it.
I can see me ending up just making the jumper the way I first thought about it, that is just having adjustable sleeves. I’m sure that will be the easiest way!
Talk to you later,
Susan.
You know some days when you get up it’s a bit chilly so you wear a jumper? Then as the day goes on it warms up a bit, do you change out of your jumper or do you just pull the sleeves up? I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago and I thought, what if you could just remove the bottom half of the sleeve and make it a short sleeved jumper. I could knit sleeves like that, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
Then I thought, why not do the same with the body of the jumper, knit it in panels that you could swap around to change the look of it.
So my little brain started ticking and I put my idea onto a piece of paper.
I could see no reason why my ‘brilliant’ idea wouldn’t work so I bid on a couple of ebay auctions for cheap job lots of wool, which I won and when they arrived I set to and knitted a few jumper tops, panels and sleeves.
I now realise I am going to need lots and lots of buttons for joining the panels together.
I also realise that because the panels are edged with ribbing they are pulling in a bit too much, so my ‘brilliant’ idea might not be so brilliant after all.
That’s not quite how I had wanted it to look.
I think I might change the design slightly and instead of knitting two seperate panels from the bottom to the under arms, I’ll just make one. I think that would look better.
I’m still going to sew buttons on the panels that I’ve already knitted and see how it looks and feels when I wear it as you can’t really tell properly when it’s just pinned together and on the dummy.
I could try and pull the ribbing out a bit and steam it so it stays, do you think that would help?
I’ll post more progress photos as I get more panels knitted. I’m hoping this doesn’t end up as a complete failure but if it does, at least I’ve got plenty of wool to make more jumpers.
Talk to you later,
Susan.
This reader’s idea for sewing up jumpers as you knit them is from the April 1974 edition of Modern Knitting:
Knit both the sleeves first, then knit the back.
When you reach the raglan armhole, pick up the first stitch on the sleeve shaping and place it on the same needle as the last stitch of the back.The sleeve must be on the opposite side to the cam box and decreases must be worked before the stitch is picked up.Knit one row and then pick up the first stitch of the other sleeve in the same way – and so on.
When you knit the front, you can join the side seams in the same way. When you come to the armhole, work as for back.
This makes a very neat seam.
I’m all for cutting down on sewing up time but would this really save much time?
I’m also wondering how you would add the neckband.
Obviously the sleeve seams would still need to be sewn up, or would they? Would it be possible to knit them circular using the ribber? I thought it might be possible to knit them from the top down, starting on the main bed then increasing down to the armholes. Then put half of the stitches onto the ribber, set the machine for circular knitting and carry on decreasing at one edge only, down to the cuff. But then how would you knit the cuff, any ideas?
Has anyone ever tried doing a sew as you go jumper and if so, how well did it work?
I’m thinking this would only work well with a raglan jumper but I could be wrong.
Talk to you later,
Susan.
If you’re knitting a plain jumper and want to add a little bit of colour to it somewhere, why not knit a two-coloured hem instead of a normal rib or mock hem?
I had a go at some hems today.
The first one was done using punchcard no.2 from the basic Silver Reed/Knitmaster set, using a 4ply(UK) yarn.
Insert the punchcard and lock on row 1.
Cast on with waste yarn and knit a few rows at main tension (in this case T6), then knit a row using ravel cord.
Knit a row with the main yarn at main tension minus 2 (in this caseT4).
Put the contrast yarn into feeder two, set the carriage for fair isle and push the side levers back to the triangle symbol.
Don’t release the punchcard, leave it locked.
Knit 4 rows at main tension minus 2, 1 row at main tension plus 1, then a further 5 rows at main tension minus 1.
This is how it should look:
Next you need to hang the first row after the ravel cord onto the needles in order to make the hem.
Then carefully pull out the ravel cord and the waste yarn should fall away.
Continue to knit with the main yarn at main tension.
This is how it looks when it’s finished:
You can make it deeper but it might make it a bit bulky.
When I first tried it, I started the fair isle on the first row after the ravel cord but found that when I came to re-hang that row to make the hem I couldn’t find the right stitches to hang. I found it much easier to knit one plain row before the fair isle.
For the second one I used punchcard no.1.
Insert card and lock on row 1.
Knit a few rows with waste yarn at main tension then 1 row with ravel cord.
Knit 1 row with main yarn at main tension minus 2.
Put contrast yarn in feeder two, set carriage for fair isle and put the side levers back.
Knit 9 rows at main tension minus 2.
Knit 1 row at main tension plus 1.
Knit 10 rows at main tension minus 1.
Make the hem as before then continue knitting with the main yarn at the main tension.
This is how it should look:
For the third one I used punchcard no.16.
Cast on with waste yarn and knit a few rows at main tension and 1 row with ravel cord.
Knit 25 rows at main tension minus 2.
Knit 1 row at main tension plus 1.
Put contrast yarn in feeder two and set carriage for fair isle with side levers back.
Knit 25 rows at main tension minus 1.
Make the hem, remove ravel cord and carry on knitting with main yarn at main tension.
Here’s the finished hem:
One thing I discovered today is that the set of punchcards that came with the Silver Reed are not quite the same as the set I already had for the Knitmaster 321, nine of them are different. So depending on which set you have, your no.16 might not be the same as the one I used.
I think these two-coloured hems are just enough to make plain jumper look a little different but without too much work.
Talk to you later,
Susan.
Today I made a knit weave shoulder bag to match the small case that I made yesterday.
I followed the instructions from the magazine and it knitted up huge.
It measures 21 inches wide and 14 inches deep which is way too big for my liking. The strap I made isn’t really strong enough for the bag so if I were to make another one (which isn’t very likely) I would have to make a thicker one.
I haven’t added a fastener but if I did I think it would probably be press studs rather than velcro or possibly even a zip.
Now I need to vacuum all the fluff out of the knitting machine – that chenille makes a heck of a mess. You should have seen the state of the carpet after I’d finished knitting it.
Talk to you later,
Susan.
