The Knit No. 20 | How to make a sweater
In which I share my steps for designing and knitting a sweater for myself without a pattern
Hi, there.
My apologies for not writing yesterday - usually I write on the first and 15th of the month. Needless to say there’s a lot going on in the world plus stuff at home (all good, just a lot - high school and college applications in the same year is so so much), so I haven’t been able to pull my thoughts together enough to write them down or type them out as the case may be.
The stuff with Ukraine* is personal: my mother-in-law is Ukrainian, my sister lives in Berlin, and even visiting a potential high school turned into a current events lesson last week because it is across the street from the Russian consulate. The stuff with the pandemic is tough. Political stuff is crazy making. And then there are those TechBros who think they’re going to revolutionize the online knitting marketplace I may have spent some time telling about them on Twitter recently.
I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time concentrating. Sometimes I just play solitaire on my phone. I had a complicated colorwork project on the needles and was so glad when I got to the plain stockinette-in-the-round part. Knitting bliss. But then I finished that one, and my Fougasse (on Ravelry) started to wear out at the elbows and buttonholes (two years of daily wear is a lot to ask of any sweater). Since that would be fourteen years of weekly wear, I feel that I’ve gotten a LOT out of that sweater, but with a case of “been there, done that”, I decided to stash dive and try something new. Unfortunately I am not in pattern writing/grading mode right now, so I don’t have plans to publish this, but I thought you might enjoy a stroll through my “I’m going to wing a DK cardigan” process…
Pull a sweater quantity (SQ) of DK yarn from the stash - not something I usually have a lot of as I prefer a lighter weight these days (thanks, perimenopause and overheated NYC apt) - which turned out to be a bunch of Backyard Fiberworks Meadow (ooh, there’s some cashmere in there) in Glacier with one skein of Cherry Blossom for contrast
With two colors (four skeins of blue and one of the contrast), I decide that stripes would be better than colorwork, and that would also give me a longer sweater (two colors in the same row means more yarn consumed in the same vertical space), even though I have only a finite quantity of yarn.
Swatch with the recommended needle then again with one size down. I prefer the slightly tighter gauge (21 sts = 4 inches). I am a loose knitter, so this isn’t a surprise.
Here’s where knitters who just like to follow a pattern will get a little weirded out: I do the math with my gauge and provisionally cast on enough stitches to get me 40 inches: 210, which will also allow me to do a 2x2 rib with an extra two knits at the end for balance. This gives me a couple of inches of ease, which can be expanded depending upon what I decide to do at the fronts - I could make the button bands, which I plan to pick up at the end, wide if I want more ease and have enough yarn.
I establish my stripe sequence and knit long enough for the body minus my planned ribbing. It’s a lot of stockinette, which is just what I need, but with a teeny bit of interest in carrying the contrast yarn up one edge and switching to it for rows 7&8 of my eight-row sequence. At this point I break the yarn and put all the stitches on waste yarn.
Time for sleeves. I should have knit one of them first rather than committing to the body based on a modest swatch (happily, the body seems just fine, circumference-wise), but I wasn’t thinking much beyond “let’s just knit (and purl)”. It’s ok, but I do decide after knitting sleeve1 that I want more ease, so I frog that sleeve and start again. Since it’s all just more stockinette knitting, I’m not upset with making a third sleeve. I do the 2x2 rib flat (with an extra two knits at the end, which the short seam for the cuff will balance out - one knit from each end will be consumed, leaving me with 2x2 rib - tada!), then join for working in the round and do the first pair of increases right away. If I were writing this up as a pattern, I would have you knit the sleeves flat (and seam later), so that your gauge matches on sleeves and body, but I’m being a little more chill here because this is just for me. Same stripe sequence as the body but with increases on the first round of the main color until I achieve my upper arm goal (46 < 74 sts for those wanting to see numbers - I want eight-ish inches at the cuff and need 14 inches for my upper arms).
Sleeves set aside on waste yarn, it’s time to do the body ribbing, so that I’ll know how much yarn I have at the end. Pick out the provisional cast-on and rib down, then bind off in pattern - a 2x2 ribbed bind off also gives a little more stretch to that edge, as opposed to casting on traditionally and going into the rib. Provisional cast-ons give me options.
At this point I feel like I have enough yarn that I can lengthen the body in the stripe area, so I do that before it’s time to join everything for the yoke. I make sure to end with the same row of the stripe sequence as the sleeves (first row of the main color - on another striped sweater, I found ending on the contrast color led to the problem of having an additional row of contrast due to grafting the underarms). I put the body on some waste yarn, so now there is a lifeline running through the tops of the sleeves and the body - if the yoke doesn’t work out, I can just frog back to the join and try again.
Some more math to join the sleeves to the body at the right spot and divide the body into two fronts and one back. Thanks to years of studying Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Percentage System, I know that underarms are about 8% of the body cast-on number, so I fudge mine to 16 sts (most of the time I prefer even numbers for things) and place removable markers on the sleeves to indicate where the underarms begin/end. For the body, the math looks like this: 210 (body) - 32 (underarms x 2) = 178 / 2 = 89 (back) / 2 = 44.5 (each front). Since I prefer whole numbers for the fronts and an even number for the back, I adjust to 90 sts for the back and 44 sts for each front, then I place more removable markers to indicate fronts/underarms/back.
Time to join! The waste yarn stays in place, and I run my needle through the front right stitches, then add in the first sleeve removing those first underarm markers and placing one of them at the gap where the body and sleeve meet. A second marker goes in the gap between sleeve and back, and I run my needle through the back stitches. More or less repeat with second sleeve and carry on to the end.
I’ve decided to do a raglan style yoke because it’s easy for me (decrease twice at the four body/sleeve points every other row), but any of EZ’s seamless constructions would work with the marked points. I just don’t want to think too much, so raglan it is.
I’ve also decided (to save a little yarn) to make this a gentle v-neck, so at the beginning and end of every fourth row I do a decrease one stitch in from the edge, so half my decrease rows will eliminate eight stitches (just the raglan points) and the other half will eliminate ten (raglan plus neckline). This should bring me close to eliminating the fronts when I have eliminated the sleeve stitches. Honestly I won’t be bothered if there’s a stitch or two left for the fronts or sleeves. I’m being very not fussy about this, which is the kind of therapy I need right now.
So I’m in the middle of my raglan stuff right now, but my plan is to break the yarn when I’ve finished my decreases, leave the back-of-neck stitches on some waste yarn, then pick up two (or three) stitches for every three (or four) rows along the fronts and v-neck edges and slip all of the held stitches onto the needle. Hopefully I’ll be close to a multiple of four plus two for a 2x2 rib plus two knits. If not I will adjust the stitch count.
Then it’s 2x2 rib for the bands and collar with some buttonholes thrown in, all the while praying to the yarn gods that I’ve got just enough left (plus a little extra for grafting the underarms and sewing on buttons, though that could be done with similar-not-the-same yarn). Binding off in rib because we know that’s a little more flexible.
Sew on buttons. Graft underarms. Weave in ends. Wash. Dry. Wear!
Assuming this all works out, I should have a new cardigan by the end of the weekend. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be back on the 15th with what I did to make it work. I’ll aim to have something fun to share then, either way.
I hope this has been interesting. Until next time, happy knitting!
xxoo, Kathleen
P.S. I don’t have a new pattern release, but you can use the code “substack25” for 25% off my patterns in my shops (buttons below), if you need a little virtual retail therapy.
*If you want to support knitwear designers in Ukraine, click here for a link to a Ravelry search. There are lovely designs and your money can go directly to Ukrainians.
The Knit No. 20 | How to make a sweater
Thank you for sharing this! Breaking it down into manageable steps turns something that seems overwhelming into something that is eminently doable. The reminders that you can fudge things as needed or re-do to adjust are welcome and encouraging!