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!

Non-camping weekend activities

This weekend we were supposed to go camping in Wisconsin with our friends, but the weather had other plans.

Now, we are not lightweights. We've camped in the rain. We've camped in the cold. We've camped in a bazillion percent humidity, with mosquitoes biting everything that wasn't covered with a layer of bug spray. We can make almost anything work. So before our trip, we stalked the weather forecasts. It was looking rather grim all week but we kept hoping for a change. However, on Friday the forecast for the weekend was supposed to be in the low 50s (as the high) and 80% chance of rain with 15-20 MPH winds. So sadly, we made the call to cancel our trip. (Which is a good thing in the end, because the weather turned out to be closer to the high 40s with constant drizzle, wind and fog. Because yes, I checked, just to make sure it was as miserable as we thought it would be.) I was seriously bummed because I was really looking forward to it, but the good news is we have another camping trip planned at the end of the month. Hopefully the weather will cooperate!

Instead, we spent the day with our friends who we would have been camping with. We passed on the Vintage Bazaar because for some reason none of us were feeling it that day—ever just have one of those days? We decided to hit a couple of antique malls in the suburbs and have lunch (I had a fried green tomato sandwich, yum!). Actually, we only intended to go to one place originally, but I mixed up the name and Googled the wrong place. It turned out to be a happy accident, and was only 5 minutes from the place I was actually trying to find.

First, I spied an entire row of wonderful aprons...

Look at the yellow one with the woman with the basked on her head, or the floral rick rack trimmed one in the middle, or the red gingham one with a diamond pattern to the right of that, or the one on the far right with the light green bottom, black rick rack and pocket. So many lovely aprons all in one place! None came home with me, however, because as much as I love aprons like that, I don't find them practical so I stick to the kind that tie around your neck.

But we did find an awesome apron for Mel...

(In case you're wondering why there are two cast iron skillets on the stove, we made Huevos Rancheros for dinner the night before. One pan for eggs, one for tortillas.)

I found a rather un-PC vintage embroidery transfer...

One of the antique malls had oodles and oodles of vintage buttons, so many I couldn't even go through them all. I did pick up a few sets of buttons, still on the cards. 

While I was deep in some tubs of buttons, Mel brought something over to show me...

A vintage tooled leather purse in perfect condition! I've been looking for a purse just like this for awhile, but I've had a hard time finding one I like that you carry over your arm instead of over your shoulder, let alone one in good condition. In fact this one was in such good condition I actually wondered if it was really vintage! Even the inside looked as good as new. But the age of the zippers was the first giveaway that it was indeed an old purse. And the second was a piece of paper slipped inside. You can see it in there in that back pocket...

Isn't this neat? An old advertisement for the brand! I love how the woman is shown in gloves...

And it sure is a dandy purse, isn't it?

The last find was a great vintage dress. But before I show you the outside of the dress, I wanted to show you sewists two features of the inside of this dress that I found interesting. The neckline facing has an unhemmed lining that was sewn into the seam but not to the facing. I'm not sure what kind of fabric this is, but it's slightly stiff and basically a loose woven mesh...

And then even more stiff was a lining under the peplum. It's similar to the lining under the facing, but white and a bit more stiff, also unhemmed, and about 3/4 the length of the peplum itself...

Interesting construction, huh?

And now you can see the dress! It's handmade, with a straight skirt and peplum all the way around. A little fancier style than I usually go for, but it was $30, in excellent condition, and I always have a soft spot for handmade vintage clothing. And did I mention it was a perfect fit, a fact I didn't discover until I got it home and tried it on?

That's the new purse to show you the scale. It's a really nice size, isn't it? It'll hold quite a bit, unlike so many of my other vintage purses. And in case you're curious, those are 1940s pee wee cowboy boots I'm wearing, and I'm probably wearing them for our wedding. (More on that another day soon!)

But enough about the accessories, isn't the dress great? I wouldn't say it takes the place of roasting marshmallows by a campfire in the woods and sleeping in a tent under the stars, but I'll take it!

Briar Rose Vintage KAL: Two ways to knit the collar

Of course while Blogger was having problems was exactly when I wanted to post my next knit-along post!

Anyway, we’ve reached the collar. There are two ways to approach it, and it’s up to you which method you choose.


Knitting the collar

1) You can knit the collar as written (or with slight size modifications for those of you who resized your pattern) and sew it to the neckline.

2) You can pick up stitches along the neckline and knit the collar that way.

If you knit the collar on its own and sew it to the neckline (the first option), you’ll knit a series of decrease rows with a plain knit row between each decrease row. If you pick up and knit the collar from the neckline (the second option), you’ll work a series of increases instead, basically working the collar backwards.

I’m a fan of omitting as many seams as I can when it makes sense, so I personally went with option 2 and picked up stitches for my collar along the neckline. I’ll walk you through both methods so you can decide which you’d like to use. Both are pretty easy. Incidentally, if you find your garter stitch tends to be looser than your stockinette (this is the case for me), knit your collar with a size smaller needle.

Knitting the collar as written (knit the collar and sew it to the neckline)

The collar portion of our pattern is pretty straightforward and really easy to modify slightly if you knit a larger size sweater/neckline.

You'll want to finish the body of the sweater and sew your shoulders together before starting in on the collar. It should look something like this.

Here it is up close so you can see the entire neckline with the shoulder seams.

Our pattern as written:

COLLAR
Cast on 120 sts.
1st row – K 10, k3tog, k to last 13 sts, k3tog, k 10.
2nd and every alternate rows - K all.
3rd row - K 9, k3tog, k to last 12 sts, k3tog, k 9.
5th row - K 8, k3tog, k to last 11 sts, k3tog, k 8.
7th row - K 7, k3tog, k to last 10 sts, k3tog, k 7.
Continue in this way, working 1 sts less each end of every other row until decreased to 84 sts. K 2 rows. Cast off.
Note: That last section is a bit confusing. All it means is continue working as set, alternating decrease rows and knit all rows until you get to 84 sts.

The concept here is that you’re starting on the outside edge of the collar and decreasing every other row until you get it down so the inside edge is the size that will fit around your neckline. In the case of the pattern as written, that’s 84 sts.

There’s an easy, though slightly tedious, way to determine how many stitches you’ll need for your collar if you resized the pattern.

Once your shoulders are sewn up, take a look at your sweater body. You’re going to count the number of stitches around the neckline. Don’t count the button band stitches, however, because if you look carefully at the pattern picture, you’ll see that the collar is attached kind of like a polo shirt. The collar doesn’t overlap the bands.

How do you count the stitches? Count them just like you were going to pick up stitches along the neckline.

Whatever number you end up with, add the difference to the number of collar stitches the pattern ends up with once the decreases are done (which is 84). For example if you counted 92 sts, that’s a difference of 8 stitches: 92 – 84 = 8.

Simply add that number of stitches (8) to the total you cast on. So instead of casting on 120, you’d cast on 128. Then you’d just follow the collar section of the pattern as written, except that you’d work until you had 92 sts left on the needle before casting off (instead of 84).

That’s all there is to it!

Knitting the collar from the neckline (pick up stitches and knit your way to the outer edge)

This method isn’t any more complicated, it just approaches things from the opposite direction. I came up with this method as an alternate way to work the collar. What you’re going to do is pick up stitches along the neckline, again not including the button bands. Pick up 1 stitch for 1 stitch, i.e. pick up a stitch through every stitch you encounter.

However: do not pick up stitches with the right side of the work facing you. This is how you’d normally pick up stitches for a neckband, right?

Don’t do that. When you pick up stitches, it always leaves a ridge on the other side. If you pick up stitches like normal, with the ride side of the work facing you, then you run the risk of that ridge being visible at the roll line of your collar.

Instead, pick up stitches from the inside, and the ridge will be hidden safely under the collar.

If you find this difficult to maneuver since it’s harder to see where to poke the needle through, just turn the work in your left hand slightly towards you between each stitch and you’ll be able to see exactly where your needle should go.

If you run into a point where it's particularly hard to pick up a stitch (this can be the case as you approach the shoulder seam), feel free to use a crochet hook to pull a stitch through. Then just place the stitch on the needle.

After picking up stitches, you’re going to basically work the collar portion of the pattern backwards, increasing instead of decreasing. You actually don’t need to count the number of stitches on your needle. You'll see in the photo below that I placed stitch markers at the shoulder seams. This was just temporary so I could make sure I picked up the same number of stitches on both the left and right front. I removed the markers in the first knit row.

The last thing the pattern has you do before casting off is to knit 2 rows. So now that you’ve picked up stitches, you’ll knit 2 rows. Actually, you’ll knit 3 rows, because you want your increase rows to fall on the right side rows, and the first row you knit after picking up stitches is a wrong side row. Though technically because the collar is garter stitch, this really doesn’t matter. It looks pretty much the same either side.

While you knitting the 3rd row, you’re going to place 4 stitch markers as follows: k2, place a stitch marker, k1, place a stitch marker, knit across all the rest of the stitches until there’s only 3 stitches left, place stitch marker, k1, place stitch marker, k2.

Now what you’re going to do is work increases like you were knitting a raglan sweater, but you’re going to work them on a collar, instead. The should be on a right side row. And remember since the collar rolls over, that the right side will be when you're looking at the inside of your sweater body (this photo shows the collar after I've knit several rows)...

All RS rows - Knit to the first stitch marker, M1, slip marker, k1, slip marker, M1, knit across neck to next marker, M1, slip marker, k1, slip marker, M1, k to end of row.
All WS rows - Knit.

Looks lengthy written out, but all you’re doing is increasing on the outside of each of the stitch marker pairs. To increase a stitch (M1), I personally used the backwards loop method (an Elizabeth Zimmerman trick, the first one shown here). Don’t worry about mirroring them because you just can’t tell in garter stitch.

It should look something like this after you've increased one stitch on the outside of each of those stitch markers (sorry this is a little blurry)...

On the next row (wrong side row), knit across the entire row. Continue these two rows, increasing every other row with a plain knit row in-between. Can you see how this is working the collar backwards from the original pattern? Instead of decreasing 2 sts with a k3tog on either side of the collar every other row, you’re increasing 2 sts with M1 pairs on either side of the collar every other row.

Here's what it will look like as you're knitting the collar...

Once you have 10 sts between the beginning of the row and your first stitch marker, or you reach the desired length you want for your collar, cast off. (I ended up knitting to 11 sts before the first marker since my rows tend to be rather short height-wise.)

Whether you cast off on a right side or wrong side row is up to you. I personally found I liked the look of the cast off edge best if I cast off on the wrong side, so I knit my last increase row, then cast off on the following row. When you cast off, I recommend going up a needle size and casting off loosely, because you want the collar to be flexible along the outside edge and not too firm.

And here is the finished collar, knit down from the neckline with no seaming...

The cast off edge is a little wiggly since it hasn't been blocked. When I block it, I'll also pull those points down a bit and stretch the collar slightly to shape it. Blocking makes everything look so much better. I originally knit about 4 more rows on my collar and then cast off, but once I tried it on I thought it was too much, so I ripped back to this length.

There's not much left to cover in the knit-along. Can you believe it? If you haven't knit your sleeves yet, you're in the same boat as me. :) The next thing I'll probably cover will be blocking, and then seaming. We have a couple of weeks left before the official (new) cast off date of June 1st. Yay!

As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Briar Rose Vintage KAL: Shoulder shaping

(Update: This post was eaten during the Blogger outage. I waited patiently starting yesterday morning when they said "Blogger was back" and said they were restoring the posts that were "temporarily removed" from Wednesday and Thursday. 24 hours later my post isn't back and as of this morning they say "almost all" posts have been restored and now they're working on comments. Gee, thanks! Fortunately my mom had a copy of this post in her RSS feed reader so I could rebuild it even though I know I'll have to go back and make a coupe of tweaks. If at some point a second copy of this appears, I guess that means they finally did restore my post. What a mess. But I didn't want anyone who really needed this post as a reference to have to wait any longer!)

Before I launch into my KAL post, I just wanted to say thank you so much for the condolences about my grandmother. Your replies have really meant a lot to me! I am so glad that I could share an important part of my family with you all in my post. :)

♥  ♥  ♥

Now, how are you doing, knit-alongers?? Many of us are in various stages along the way. And there's at least one knitter who finished her Briar Rose, in April no less. That's right, Kate of Vintage in a Modern World finished hers, and it was her first sweater, too! Pretty great!

Many of you are already thinking about your collar, but before we get to that (soon!), we need to cover shoulders.

You may have already knit your shoulders per the pattern (a few of you have), but for those of you who are knitting a bit slower, I'm going to show you an alternative method to the way the pattern is written. If you're bemoaning the way you worked the shoulders after reading this, don't worry! What you did is perfectly a-ok. I'm just going to present another way to work them, and you can use this for future reference if you'd like to try it on another sweater sometime down the road.

Shoulder shaping

When you're knitting a sweater from the bottom up, the shoulders are the last thing you do on the front and back pieces. You knit up to the shoulders, then you cast off a certain number of stitches over a certain number of rows. Usually not many rows—in the ballpark of 6 or 8 rows—but always an even number since you have 2 shoulders. This gives you a nice, gentle slope, mimicking the slope of your own shoulder.

Remember our old friend, the blank sweater?

See how the shoulders slope slightly down and away from the neckline? With slight variations based on style, this is pretty universal. It's good to keep this in mind while you're working your shoulders, in case you discover something amiss. Is your shoulder sloping up from the neckline? Time to examine your knitting and your pattern and see if you made a mistake!

When you get to your shoulders, you will have somewhere around 3 to 5 inches of knitting at each shoulder, depending upon the pattern and any tweak you may have made for broad or narrow shoulders, with the neckline stitches in the middle (recall that each shoulder and the neckline roughly make up about 1/3 of the stitches you have left at this point). If there is no shaping at the back of the neck (which is the case with Briar Rose) the pattern will read something like this:

When armhole measures 7 inches [or desired armhole depth], shape shoulders by casting off 10 sts at the beginning of the next 6 rows.

This is actually how our pattern as written has you shape the shoulders, I just added the notation about armhole depth since many of us are working our own rewritten version of the pattern. (In my case, the armhole depth of my rewritten pattern is 7.5 inches.)

What this has you do is cast off/bind off a small number of stitches (10 in this case) at the beginning of each of the next 6 rows. The 3 knit rows shape the left shoulder (though this is the right-hand side of your work when the public side is facing you). The 3 purl rows shape the right shoulder (the left-hand side of your work when the public side is facing you).

Once you've completed that, you cast off the rest that's in the middle. Those remaining cast off stitches are your neckline, which is (obviously) between the two shoulders.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with working the shoulders in this method! It just means that when you're ready to finish your sweater, you'll have to sew the front and back shoulders together. There are several ways to do this, with two popular methods being mattress stitch with the right sides facing you, or backstitch with the wrong sides facing you.

Short row shoulder shaping

This all being said, there is another way to shape your shoulders, and it's my preferred method: using short rows.

At some point in my knitting past I read this great article on Knitty on how to work short row shoulders. I'm not sure why, exactly. I think I read about the technique on Ravelry and wanted to learn more (my usual modus operandi). I liked the idea of not having to sew up my shoulder seams.

When you use short rows to shape your shoulders, those shoulder stitches are actually left live in your needles (i.e. not cast off), and you use three needle bind off to attach the front and back shoulders together. This is an easy technique that produces a nice clean seam, worked from the inside. You won't need to fuss with a sewing needle.

If you're new to short rows, it can feel a bit confusing at first, leaving stitches on the left needle and turning your work before you get to the end of the row. Butonce you master the technique you may never go back to normal shoulder shaping again. (I haven't!) Just remember these two pieces of advice: 1) the shoulders slope down from the neckline (important to remember so you don't build the shoulder the wrong way); 2) there aren't very many shoulder rows, so if you screw it up you won't be out much time if you have to rip back and try it again!

Let's start with the back piece.

That's the back of the sweater. Note I've measured to make sure I've hit my desired 7.5" depth from my armhole, marked by the stitch marker at the lower right.

In case you're curious, the stitch marker towards the top is one that I move along the way so I can eyeball the length of my work. I'll make a note where it is, say, at 4", then move it after another couple of inches, etc. The way I measure is by placing a stitch marker in the very first row after the armhole bind off row, and then carefully measure from that point, like this...

When you work short row shoulders, knit up to the same point in the pattern where it tells you to start the shoulders, i.e. "When armhole measures 7 inches, shape shoulders by..." in the case of Briar Rose. That's what the above photo shows. I stopped knitting just before I was supposed to start shaping the shoulders.

What you're going to do now is knit a series of progressively shorter rows. Short rows. Get it?

In Briar Rose, it tells us to cast off 10 stitches at the beginning of each of the next 6 rows. We know 3 of those rows shape the left shoulder and 3 shape the right shoulder. We also know at the end, we'll cast off the neckline stitches that remain in the middle. We're still going to do mostly that.

What we're not going to do is cast off those 10 stitches in each of those rows. Instead, we're going to not work them, leaving them live on the needle, and we'll use the wrap and turn technique to make sure we don't end up with gaps (which you'd otherwise get if you turned your knitting and started knitting back without working a wrap & turn). Later, we'll conceal the wrapped stitches by knitting them together with the stitch they're wrapped around.

This is approximately how the rows will be worked. I hope this gives you a good visual to see how these are, indeed, "short" rows. See how each arrow is a little shorter than the one before it?

For those of you who know how to work short rows, I'm going to write how I changed the instructions. Then I'll go through how to work them for those of you who are new to this technique.

Shoulder shaping in my rewritten version of Briar Rose:

BACK
When armhole measures 7.5 inches [my desired armhole depth], shape shoulders by casting off 9 sts at the beginning of the next 6 rows. Cast off remaining 32 stitches [neckline].

Now, rewritten for short row shoulders...

Reworking for short row shoulder shaping:

BACK
When armhole measures 7.5 inches, shape shoulders as follows:

Knit across row until 10 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Purl across row until 10 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Knit across row until 19 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Purl across row until 19 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Knit across row until 28 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Purl across row until 28 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.

Cast
off 32 stitches, picking up wrapped stitches as they come, and
continuing to knit across remainder of row. Place these 27 sts on a
holder [left shoulder]. Break yarn with a long tail to work 3 needle BO when corresponding front shoulder is complete.

Turn
work, attaching yarn at center and purl across remaining stitches,
picking up wraps as they come and purling them with their stitch. Please
these 27 sts on a holder [right shoulder]. Break yarn with a long tail to work 3 needle BO when corresponding front shoulder is complete.

You'll notice that in my version for short rows, I said to knit across until you have 10 stitches on the needle, even though in my rewritten version of the pattern I was casting off 9 stitches at at time. Why? Because when you get to those 10 stitches, you'll wrap the next stitch, so ultimately you end up with 9 unworked stitches (and a wrapped stitch that gets counted in the next section of unworked stitches). So you knit to 1 stitch more than what your pattern would have to cast off. Make sense?

This would be a good point to mention that these numbers are not written in stone. If you worked to 9 stitches, then at the end found out your last section of unworked stitches had an extra stitch, the world would not come to an end. Trust me.

Wait! How do you do that wrap and turn?

It's easy. First, read this simple short row tutorial on Purl Bee before you get started. It is short, to the point and exactly what you need to do. Plus it's far better than the series of photos I tried to put together for you. LOL!

It shows you how to wrap and turn on a knit row and on a purl row, both of which you'll need to know how to do. It also shows you how to pick up the wrapped stitch on the knit side and on the purl side, both of which you'll also need to know how to do.

My explanation on the reworked shoulders

Okay, so I've written up how I would alter the back shoulders for short rows, per my measurements. The basic concept is that you're working 6 rows, each a little bit shorter by the number of stitches you would otherwise be casting off in the pattern as written. You're turning your work each time to start the next row, but you're wrapping a stitch first so that it prevents you from getting an unsightly gap in your knitting.

Once you've worked those short rows, you have to cast off the neckline stitches, and you also have to knit (or purl) across all the remaining stitches on both sides one more time so you can knit (or purl) the wrapped stitches, otherwise your final knitting will have the little wraps still in place and look funky.

There are a number of ways to do this, but I opt for the same method as described in the aforementioned Knitty article on shoulder shaping.

Once you've worked your short rows for the shoulders (6 short rows, in my example), you cast off the neckline stitches. That very first stitch you'll be casting off is actually a wrapped stitch as you'll see, so it will be the first time you need to pick up the wrap and the stitch together, while you're casting off that stitch. (Don't worry, it sounds complicated but when your knitting is in your hands, it will make sense.) Why do you do it? Because you need to get rid of those pesky wraps. This is what a wrap looks like, hanging out around a stitch.

See how it's really obvious and disrupts the nice sea of stockinette? You need to knit that together with the stitch it's wrapped around, which will conceal it. The Purl Bee tutorial will show you in-depth how to pick up the wraps and knit them together with the stitch, but basically it's kind of like working a decrease, like 2tog, where you're just knitting two stitches together. You put your needle through the wrap, then the stitch, and knit both together as one stitch. Kind of like this...

(In the above photo, I was getting both the wrap and the stitch on the needle in preparation for casting off a stitch, in case you're wondering why I'm doing that on the right needle. I was just about to slip them both over the stitch to the left, i.e. the furthest stitch to the left on the right needle.)

Continue casting off the number of stitches for your neckline as your rewritten pattern indicates. In my case, that's 32 sts. (If you're not sure how many that is, subtract away the number of shoulder stitches on each side from the number of stitches you had left on the needle before you started shaping the shoulder.) When you encounter another wrapped stitch, which you will just before you cast off your last neckline stitch, again pick up the wrap as you cast off that stitch. Then continue knitting across the rest of that row, still picking up and knitting wrapped stitches as you come to them. 

Once you've done that, you can break your yarn (leave a long tail for your three needle bind off later) and place those stitches on a holder. It'll look like this...

Now you need to go back to work one last row across the purl side for your other shoulder stitches that are still on the needle, purling those wrapped stitches as you come to them. Why? Again, you're getting rid of those pesky wraps.

When you're done, it'll all look like this. Two shoulders ready for a three needle bind off, and cast off neckline stitches in the middle.

Alternately, instead of casting off the neckline and knitting across the one shoulder, then re-attaching yarn to purl across the other shoulder, you could break your yarn after you work the last short row and knit across the entire row from the beginning, casting off the neckline in the middle. It's really a matter of personal preference.

What about the front shoulders?

The front shoulders are even easier. You won't have to worry about the neckline stitches as you'll have already been shaping it so you can get your head in, thus your left shoulder and right shoulder will already have been worked separately.

FRONT 
Shoulder shaping in my rewritten version of Briar Rose:
When armhole measures 7.5 inches [my desired armhole depth], shape shoulders by casting off 9 sts at armhole edge every 2nd row 3 times.

That "every 2nd row 3 times" part amounts to 6 rows, like for the back. Except this time, all you have left on your needles is the shoulder stitches, which in my case is 27 sts. You've already decreased away your neckline stitches. It says to do that at the armhole edge so you slope the shoulder the correct way.

As it happens the way I work short rows for the front shoulders, it ends up taking 2 less rows than the way I showed you to work the back, so just keep that in mind and start your front shoulder shaping 2 rows later than you did for the back. (And if you forget, it's not the end of the world. How do I know this? It didn't even occur to me until writing this tutorial that this was the case. So I have a whole lot of sweaters where the front is 2 rows shorter than the back. Hasn't made a lick of difference...)

Here's the only other thing you have to keep straight in your head: you don't work the left and right shoulders starting on the knit side.

On the front left shoulder (i.e. your left shoulder), you work the short rows starting on the purl side.

On the front right shoulder (i.e. your right shoulder), you work the short rows starting on the knit side.

Why? So you have your shoulders sloping the correct way, down from the neckline in opposite directions, not shaping them both in the same direction. Yes, this means that one shoulder will be one row shorter than the other. You can throw in an extra row on the side that gets shortchanged one row, or not worry about it, which is what I usually do.

FRONT
Reworking for short row shoulder shaping:
When armhole measures 7.5 inches, shape shoulders as follows:

Knit (or purl) across row until 10 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Purl (or knit) across row to end.
Knit (or purl) across row until 19 stitches remain on the left needle. Wrap & turn.
Purl (or knit) across row to end.

Knit
(or purl) across entire row, picking up wrapped stitches as they come.
Break yarn and place these 27 sts on a holder to work 3 needle bind off
with back corresponding shoulder.

It only takes 4 short rows to complete the slope for the front shoulder , hence the extra 2 rows you
should knit before you work them. Then just as you did for the back, here you'll knit (or purl) across all stitches on the last row to pick up the wraps and knit them with the stitches.

Three needle bind off

Once your back shoulders and your front shoulders have been shaped, you're ready to work a three needle bind off on each set (front/back left, front/back right). Again, I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here, so I'm going to point you to this tutorial on the technique. It's really easy, the easiest part of this whole post. Seriously. With the right sides facing together on the inside, you essentially bind off the front and back at the same time together. Look how short this section is, you don't even get a photo. ;)

Final thoughts

I've showed you the techniques I personally use to work short rows on shoulders, but you could also vary it slightly if you'd like and if you find something works better for you. Play around with it a bit! Make note of how you did it so you don't have to try and remember every time you get to a new shoulder.


Next up will be the collar, and I'll hopefully be showing you two methods you can try depending on your preference. If I can't get the post completed before the weekend, you'll have it early next week. :) As always, please let me know if you have any questions, or post in the Flickr group!

Online resources for this post:

• Mattress stitch—General information on working mattress stitch seams.
• Mattress stitch on horizontal seams—How to work mattress stitch on two horizontal pieces of knitting, such as  how you'd use it to seam a front and back shoulder together. 
• Backstitch—How to work backstitch to sew two pieces of knitting together. Note  backstitch is done with the right sides facing each other so you're  working it from the wrong side.
• Rewriting a pattern for short row shoulder shaping—How to figure out what you need to do to rewrite your shoulders for short rows.
• Short row tutorial—Very straight-forward tutorial on how to work short rows and the wrap & turn technique.
• Short row shoulder shaping video—For those of you who prefer video tutorials, this one really cemented the technique for me.
• Three needle bind off—Clear instructions on how to work this technique to make a seam with 2 rows  of live knitting. Note you must have exactly the same number of stitches in each row for this to work.

My grandma

Hi everyone, I have returned from my trip to New Mexico. On Thursday evening I found out that one day before my flight to see her, my grandmother passed away. She had family surrounding her in her last days. She died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 96.


As I'm sure you can guess, I was sad, frustrated and disappointed that I didn't make it in time to say goodbye. But as my mom told me on the phone when I called to tell her, "You don't have to be there in person to say goodbye." And that's true. (As an aside, my grandma once noted to me, "I must have done something right, as I have two ex daughters-in-law who still write!")

The weekend, however, was not sad. I had a really enjoyable drive from Albuquerque to Los Alamos with two of my cousins, and we stopped for dinner in Santa Fe and toasted our grandmother over a margarita and New Mexican cuisine. We shared lots of funny stories. This was a woman who was by and large healthy as a horse pretty much until her final days. A woman who purportedly told her doctor when being admitted to the hospital to have her hip replacement surgery some years ago that she hadn't been admitted to the hospital since she broke her arm when she was 13 and fell off her horse, and no, being in the hospital to give birth three times apparently didn't count. She was very intelligent, graduating from high school at the age of 16 in 1931, going on to teach in a one room school house until she entered college two years later. She was the most voracious reader you ever did see. I don't think she ever uttered a curse word her entire life (hot weather was even "hotter than Hades" to her). She was active in her church, her college sorority and her community well into her 80s. She once credited her good health to water exercise classes (take note!). I swear she didn't have a mean bone in her body. Everyone she ever knew was the better for it.

The family gathered at my uncle and aunt's house on Saturday for a very informal memorial. I saw cousins I rarely get to see, and everyone shared stories. I heard about her making my uncles strip naked when they got sprayed in the face by a skunk, while she buried their clothes and everything on them at the time (including my uncle's best Roy Rogers cap gun) in the backyard and my dad, the youngest of the three brothers, laughed hysterically from safe inside. I heard about her riding her horse, Bess, to school everyday. We told funny grandma-isms and other family stories. And we all remembered her cooking fondly (well, except a couple of aspic dishes). The whole weekend I wore her wedding ring and smiled whenever I thought of her. I think we all did.

It was a long life, well lived, full of health, good friends and family. She will be missed, but we're all thankful to have had so many years to enjoy our time with her.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite photos. Little baby me and my Grandma Nella Mae. It makes me smile. :)

Briar Rose Vintage KAL: Will post next week

I know I owe you all a knit-along post! Bad leader!

Unfortunately it's not going to happen this week. I leave tomorrow for New Mexico for my emergency weekend trip. I will be seeing my family and will hopefully get to see my grandmother for what will most likely be one last time. Things have declined pretty quickly with her health.

Does knitting relax you in stressful situations? It can go either way for me. Sometimes during times of stress in my life I knit like a maniac. Often socks are my knit of choice then. There's something about the extra small needles and tight stitches that mirrors how my body feels when I'm stressed, all tight and pent up. Sometimes however, I just don't feel like knitting at all when I'm stressed, and that's really been the case for me this week.

So expect a post from me next week. From the thread in the Flickr group, I know I will definitely be discussing the collar. I'll also touch on a couple of different ways to attach the shoulders. If there's anything specific you'd like me to cover, please let me know in the comments! Sorry I've gotten a little behind with this part. :)