Knitting A Baby Sweater – Part Two (by Robyn Devine)

Here we go with the second half of our Knitting A Baby Sweater post.  Hopefully you’ve completed part one and you’re ready to finish your sweater. 

Now that you’ve got the yoke of your sweater done you’re ready to start working on the sleeves and the lower body.  As tricky as some of these instructions may seem I promise they’ll go just as fast as the yoke part of the sweater.

First up is dividing for the sleeves and body. What I love about a pattern like this is that you knit the sleeves in the midst of knitting the body so there’s truly no seaming to be done. According to the directions you knit through the first 22 stitches and then put them on a spare needle, a stitch holder or some yarn. For this I just leave the stitches on the needle.  Once you start working on the sleeve it’s pretty clear which stitches are which and then you don’t have to futz with any extra tools.

Follow the directions for the sleeve: knit a row, purl a row, continue along until you decrease.  You already know how to do this thanks to the first half of the sweater!   Then knit seven rows in stockinette stitch. Bind off to the last stitch leaving the loop free for seaming up the sleeve.

It should look something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now fold the sleeve in half, as seen in the photo below, with the right sides together. You’ll be grabbing a crochet hook (I use size “I” for this) to slip stitch up the sleeve.  To slip stitch in crochet, insert your hook through one stitch on either side of the sleeve and wrap the yarn around the crochet hook, from back to front.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pull the hook (with the yarn wrapped around it) through all three stitches you now have on your needle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and you’ve got yourself a slipped stitch!

Continue like this all the way down the side of the sleeve, until you come to the armpit of the sleeve. You should have one stitch left on the crochet hook and see a bit of space between the needles and where the arm should join the sweater.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To get rid of what will end up being holes in the armpits I simply pick up a few stitches before I move on.  This isn’t in the instructions but it helps get rid of those holes that will otherwise show up and we’ll get rid of those extra stitches later on! 

To pick up stitches, simply insert your right needle into a free spot between it and the sleeve. Do this twice and then slip the stitch off the crochet hook and onto the right needle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pick up two more stitches between the sleeve and the left needle (using the right needle again) and then knit across the back stitches. Repeat this same “sleeve making process” for the other sleeve and finish knitting across the row.

The rest of the sweater is easy! You simply knit a row, then purl a row, until the sweater is long enough that you want to add the bottom edge on. If you want to get rid of those four extra stitches under the arms simply knit two together four times around each armpit on your first knitting row after adding the sleeves.

The bottom edge of the sweater is simply a few more rows of garter stitch which should seem like a cake walk compared to all the new stitches you’ve now mastered.   All that’s left is to weave in the ends and you’ve got yourself a great new baby sweater!

Now if you’re anything like me you’ve already gotten addicted to it and you’re about to cast on another!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t forget to make one or two and donate them to your local hospital – the babies will thank you!  You can also send your sweater to the Knit for Needs charity and Meridith will make sure it gets to a baby that needs a warm sweater.

Types of Knitting Yarn (video)

Hello… I am Mr Yarn

Hello…

I am Mr YARN. Now, you’re probably wondering who I am, and why I am here in this BIG wide world of ours… Well, I am the most charismatic ball of yarn you will ever come across. Yes, that’s right- or so my owner/creator tells me.

My life began all the way back in the year 2000, the Millennium, where I started of as an iddy biddy little bouncy ball (multi-coloured with a hint of white smudging to be precise). One day, my owner decided to wrap me up in some fresh woollen YARN and since then, my life has been an inner-twined adventure of knitty goodness. Every year I accumulate more and more colourful layers of yarn, causing me to grow and grow.

I guess I’m not like other balls of yarn. Unlike their loose, fluffy ovular quality, I am a triumphant round shape, with a structure so strong and unyielding I could probably crush an ant (if I had the pleasure to roll out my owner’s front door). My coloured woollen layers will often change, depending on my mood. This summer, I felt so happy and sunnified that my owner gave me a bright yellow cosy coating, allowing me to bloom upon my bedroom shelf.

It was this year I decided to cast off my curiosity and try and find other balls of yarn like my kind through joining Twitter. I began my Twitter adventure at a circumference of 23cm, weighing a challenging 2.2kg (babies can sometimes weigh this much I’ll have you know) consisting of pure sheep wool – apart from my fragile little bouncy ball heart of course. With over 20 different effervescent colours to my past I can even BOUNCE – this has to be done carefully though as sometimes my yarn comes loose. Waw. So, more importantly, my owner didn’t make me for knitting. Oh no, he made me for ball related pleasure as well as a great shelf ornament. Sometimes I do worry he is just building me up for one great big jumper.

You see, although life sounds great for me, I feel there is so much more to see and learn. Like sheep… I have heard all sorts of wonderful and magnificent stories about those field galloping, wool donating animals. I want to explore, venture out into the open and roll away from my tungsten lit bedroom shelf. What wondrous obstacles lie ahead of me? How will I survive? Are there other kinds like me, roaming our earth, evolving from thread to thread, rolling down roads rebelling against their knittable purpose of life?

I will do this! I WILL succeed in my mission! And for every ant I squish, I will document my journey along the way. See more of me at www.twitter.com/mryarn where you can suggest great adventures for me to embark upon, have control over what colour I shall be next, help me get BIG and ROUND and be part of fulfilling my dreams to explore the world. P.s. If you follow me, I will follow you. Tee Hee.

Lots of yielding yarn love

 

Mr Yarn