Briar Rose Vintage KAL: A few more tips

I've been following our Flickr group discussions carefully, and there are 3 topics I thought would be important for me to touch on here for everyone to read.

Working decreases on purl rows

I may have touched on this elsewhere, but I wanted to mention it here too. In the pattern as written, it tells you to start off the armhole decreases as follows:

k2tog each end of the next 4 rows

Either this is an editing mistake, or they assumed that you would understand that on the purl rows, you would actually p2tog. Either way, the general rule is work knit-oriented decreases on knit rows, and purl-oriented ones on purl rows.

Now this is an area that I'm usually fairly anal-retentive about, as you'll know from when I touched on mirrored increases earlier in the KAL. But I didn't talk about decreases. Here's how I work them when I have to do decreases on both sides of a piece, like for the armholes on the back of a sweater.

When the right side (RS) is facing me, I knit two stitches, then work a SSK decrease, which slants to the left, and will follow the slope of the decrease of the armhole. I knit across the row in pattern until I have 4 stitches left. I work a k2tog decrease, then knit the last 2 sts. This slants that decrease to the right, following the slope of the decrease of that armhole.

When I need to work decreases on the purl side as well, I want those decreases to be facing the same way as the decreases on the knit row, right? On the edge where I worked a k2tog, I work a p2tog. From the right side (RS) of the piece, they will look exactly the same. Then on the edge where I worked a SSK, I work a p2tog tbl (purl 2 together through the back loop, which is shown here). How do I keep track? Well I just remember those plain k2tog and p2tog stack up on the same side, and remember the "weird" ones are on the other side. Not very scientific. ;) But if you're ever in doubt, just turn your work to the RS and take a look and see if the decreases are slanting in the same direction.

The pocket

I wasn't initially planning to cover much about the pocket because it's fairly straightforward. However, Ingrid and Liz discovered that the pocket, worked to the size according to the pattern, comes out a bit bigger than pictured in the pattern. My mistake for making an assumption when I hadn't yet knit the pocket myself! :)

The pattern as written:
POCKET
Using larger needles, cast on 27 sts.
1st row - K.
2nd row - K twice into first st, k11, k3tog, k11, k twice into last st.
Repeat the last 2 rows until side measures 3". Cast off.

[From the "Make Up" section]
Sew on collar and pocket, working 1 row of D.C. around pocket.

Here's the first thing to clarify that I didn't notice was in the pattern until the Flickr discussion: double crochet in Australia and the UK is single crochet in the United States (here is a comparison chart). So when you work a crochet border on your pocket, work it in single crochet (video here), those of you in the U.S.! While the pattern doesn't specify, you're going to want to work in a crochet hook as close to the same size diameter as the needle size you used to knit the pocket. If you used 3mm needles to knit the pocket, try and use a crochet hook close to 3mm as you can. In the U.S. there's no 3mm hook, so you'd want to go the next size up, which would be D, or work with a smaller hook but work pretty loosely to make up the difference.

Don't have any crochet hooks close to the size of your knitting needle, don't feel like getting one or don't know how to crochet (though it's a very useful craft to learn)? That's okay, too. There's no rule that says you must crochet a border on the pocket! You can go ahead and sew the pocket on as-is if you'd like.

Now here's the second thing to clarify about the pocket: if you work it in the same size needle as the body, and work to 3" along the side edge, you may discover it seems a little big. There are several ways to fix this.

You can try going down a needle size (I tend to for garter stitch, anyway, and did so for my collar) to make it a bit smaller overall.

To make it less tall, don't work until the sides are 3", but try a little bit shorter, like 2 or 2.5".

You can also cast on less stitches, making sure the final number of stitches is still an odd number like the original pattern. So instead of casting on 27 and working every other row like this:

2nd row (and every even row) - K twice into first st, k11, k3tog, k11, k twice into last st.

You could instead do something like cast on 23 sts (not 27), and work every other row like this:

2nd row (and ever even row) - K twice into first st, k9, k3tog, k9, k twice into last st.

It changes the pattern very little, but it will keep the same dimension, just cutting a few stitches from each side.

And that brings us to the last thing to clarify about the pocket: K twice into the first st is just a form of increasing one stitch, like knitting into the front and back of a stitch (KFB). You can choose whatever type of increase you'd prefer. If you plan on omitting the crochet border, I would recommend making sure your increase is at least 1, if not 2, stitches in from the edge, because it will make it a bit easier to seam. This is usually how increases are done on something that's going to be seamed, like the side seam increases/decreases of a sweater or armhole decreases when you set in a sleeve.


The button placket / button bands

Barbara brought this to my attention in the Flickr group. The pattern as written tells you to separate the front into two halves to create the button placket up the center front when your armhole shaping is complete. I didn't actually think of this during my own knitting as I had planned the length of my own button placket from the top down.

That's after 16 rows, according to the pattern. At the pattern's row gauge of 8.5 rows per inch, that's only 1.88" up from the armhole BO row. That's kind of low, if you ask me, when you consider the fact that you start the neckline BO at 5.5". That button placket doesn't exactly look 3.62" long, nor does it look like it starts at the end of the armhole decreases, does it?

I would recommend working maybe another inch after your armhole shaping. I worked until 2.75" from the initial armhole BO row, then I split for the two halves of the front. (Note: I worked to an armhole depth of 7.5".) See how what I did more closely mimics the original pattern than what it tells you to do?

How did I arrive on 2.75"? I had already decided that I would start the neckline BO at 5.75", and I wanted my button placket to be 3" long. In hindsight, I probably would have lowered the neckline another .5" or so, as mine is a little tighter than I wanted it, but I can likely block that out.


Hope these tips help you. This has been one of the really fun parts of this knit-along, getting to learn from each other's knitting experiences!

Briar Rose Vintage KAL: A couple of tips

Hey knit-alongers! How are you doing? It's been really fun seeing progress photos in the Flickr group!

I admit, my Briar Rose is woefully still behind! That's what I get for setting too many deadlines for myself before VLV. But I can just start to see the finish line with my current vintage knit (that I have to finish before we leave, or else I need to rethink two outfits, yikes), so that means I'll be getting back to Briar Rose soon. And I've missed knitting on it!

I realized that while I planned out my pre-knitting posts for so long, I didn't give as much thought to the posts while we're all currently knitting because, well, we're all knitting at different paces. So I thought I'd post a couple of small tips (tiplets, if you will) and then open it up for questions on things you might like me to go over!

Tiplet #1:  Mirrored increases

I know this tip comes too late for those of you who have already started, but I recently discovered something that I thought I'd share. For sometime now, I've been working mirrored increases when I need to increase on both sides of a row. This basically just means that the increases on each edge face in opposite directions. There are lots of techniques for working increases but the one I've grown accustomed to is M1 (make 1 stitch). Essentially you lift the bar between two stitches and knit into it, making a new stitch. Depending on the direction you knit into the stitch and the direct you orient the bar onto the needle, it changes the direction of the slant of the new stitch. This is a kind of a minor thing and you could really live your whole life happily knitting away without ever mirroring your increases, but it's a little extra touch I like to do.

So here's the deal. When I work in the round (my preferred method to knitting flat), I like to have my increases aiming away from the side seam marker. Up until quite recently, it actually dawned on me I wasn't doing that. I was aiming them towards the marker. And while it works just as well and the difference visually is probably negligible to most, to me it looks much better when you aim them away from the marker. (Of course, I started Briar Rose doing it the other way and won't be switching mid-project.)

So learn from my mistake. Here's what I think is a better way to mirror your increases in the round:

If you're working in the round, 2 stitches before you reach your side seam marker, work a M1R (make one that slants to the right). Watch the M1R video for both English and Continental knitters here (it's halfway down the page on the left side). Knit across your next 2 stitches, slip your marker, knit across 2 more stitches, then work a M1L. Watch the M1L video here (same page, just on the right-hand side). If you're working in the round you can opt to just knit to 1 stitch before and after the marker since there isn't going to actually be a seam, but I usually go with 2.

Of course this is all subjective and might depend on your knitting style! So take it with a grain of salt, as always. :)


Tiplet #2:  neckline buttonhole bands

I've worked small neckline (front or back) button bands in two different ways recently. No matter how you do it, you will always want to have a flap behind the buttonholes. Because think of it this way: if you have two pieces of kntiting that were once one piece (i.e. the front of your sweater or the back of it), and then you smoosh over one side to button on top of the other side, you're going to get an unsightly bulge at the base of the buttonhole band.

Our Briar Rose pattern does indeed have you knit this little extra flap, by casting on extra stitches and working them in garter stitch. You won't see these stitches from the public side of your knitting as they'll be behind the buttonhole band, and working it in garter stitch prevents it from curling. I personally find it easiest to cast on at the end of the row using the backward loop cast on, instead of casting on at the beginning of the next row like our pattern tells us to do.

For a cleaner edge on your buttonhole band, slip the first stitch of every RS (right side) row purlwise. Yes, that buttonhole band is knit in stockinette so it might have a bit of a tendency to curl, but it's a small amount of fabric and once you block your sweater and put your buttons on, it shouldn't matter in the slightest. If you're worried however, you could always knit those first 6 or 8 stitches in (k1,p1) ribbing. Visually it will look pretty much like stockinette and will mean absolutely no curling. You can still slip the first stitch for a nice clean edge.

Any questions?

Any burning questions you've been wondering about as you've been knitting? I'm trying to be pretty casual with the actual 'knit-along' part (as evidenced by my own lack of progress, lol). I know Andrea of New Vintage Wardrobe and Katie of The Little Red Squirrel are just sailing away on theirs, knitting flat like the pattern. Barbara of Moxie Tonic is knitting along in the round like me (and we might get to have a mini Briar Rose KAL at VLV!), and Liz of zilredloh.com will soon be joining us now that she's recently finished up another vintage knit and used the info from my sleeve cap tutorial to help her with her sleeves!

How is yours going? And if you're not knitting along with the KAL, what fun projects do you have on your needles this month?