Archive of Thread: Finished the sweater I started a while ago. Back

2 years ago

Well, I finished the sweater I started a while ago. It is not a full size. It is just larger than a baby or little child. The measurements were rather random.

If I remember it was the Strawberry Pattern.


There are issues and I will be doing this again, after watching videos and practicing the different steps of the sweater. 

There is a problem that I think will be an issue with any sweater meant to be worn. I have so many ends to fasten. I am always concerned with unraveling in washing or wearing. I have them lightly knotted and then woven into stitches. The arm hole where that straight section is, you can see that it is quite bulky from the seams.

It took me 2 hours to fasten off ends after I stitching it together. It is kind of bulky at the neck/collar, also, although it does not look like it. I think this would be uncomfortable to wear.

Why do I end out with so many yarn ends? Does anyone else have a ton of yarn ends to deal with when they are done?

I suspect that there might be a video about finishing up and securing the yarn ends, so I will look around the classroom and learn sections and see what I can find. But if anyone has any info on this, feel free to reply. 

I have to say, this is the best one so far.

2 years ago
Congratulations, Cynthia!  You are obviously making very good progress.

Were you working with coned or balled yarn?  Coned reduces the number of ends to darn in.  Also, as you finish each piece, think about whether cutting the yarn with a very long tail will mean you can use that end to sew a seam or join the shoulders:  that saves you having the tail from the knitting and another tail from the sewing-up thread.  When I am knitting a raglan I leave a very long end at the top of the back, both sleeves and the right-hand end (as it hangs on the machine) of the front.  Those 4 yarn ends I then use to sew the raglan and side seam (twice) and the raglan and sleeve seam (twice).  If it's a round neck, I start leaving a short tail which will be used to seam the collar or neckband and end with a long tail which will be used to stitch down the neckband.

If you have a lot of tail ends because of using balled yarn or knitting different coloured stripes you can wind the tail ends over and under about 10 needles at the start of a row, then there is no sewing-in to do afterwards and this does seem to stand up to washing and wearing.

Did you cast off all the stitches along the neckline of the back and front and at the top of the sleeves?  Bulk is much reduced if you shape the neckline by short-rowing and finish the sleeves on waste yarn then join on the machine.  Short-rowing the neckline is something you might want to leave until you are a little more experienced.

Jenny 

2 years ago
Thank you, Jenny. 

I used balls that I wound. I am having a hard time finding simple acrylic cone yarn. Nothing fancy, just acrylic cone fir the LK150 midgauge.

There is a section with the short rowing that it is basically one row. That is two ends there. There was one row and then it was scrapped off. That is what it was. I did the one side at the neck. Then then my instructions had a section where there was o e row and then it was scrapped off. I don't remember exactly why. I can't remember because I started this way back in July 2021 and had to put it away for the afore mentioned emergency. 

I had live stitches for the back and front to the collar, if I remember correctly. I know I short rowed and I left live stitches by scrapping off whenever I knew it was going to be added back on, or if I was not sure. If I was not sure, I figured I could always bind off if using live was not the way to go. I don't believe that has been the case yet. I used the videos. It just seemed that in so many places I had to cut the yarn and start again . I wish I could remember what those cases were. The next time, I am going to try to remember to make a note when I do that and why. We will see how that goes. 

I had live stitches for the sleevd attachment. The sleeve stitches were live. The sweater arm hole part were stitches that I picked up when I attached the sleeves. I just pulled out the needles after attaching both sections to the bed. I laid a yarn across the needles and manually pull the needles through with a loose enough stitch to allow the binding off without it being tight or pulling the armhole. Worked pretty good. I had to hand sew the section where the straight edge at the end of each side of the sleeve attached to the ledge on the body of the sweater. That is kind of clunky. I want to find out if there is a way to not have that ledge of about 7 stitches at each armhole beginning and the straight section at the ends of each side of each sleeve. Not a fan. It was not exactly squared off and it is clunky. 

I did that thing, I can't remember what it was called, for the shoulders where you knit a loose row and then did that sort of weaving. It was a new technique that someone told Sue about and there was a video or something posted last year? That is what I did for the shoulders. I liked that. I can't remember exactly how it was done. The first side, I did the stitches too loose. Live and learn. When I am reading or hearing "loose" I usually do it too loose.

I think my neckline was better. If I recall, I used a tighter tension. I wish I had made notes, but I did not know it would be set aside for a long time. I thought, when I picked it up a couple days ago, that I was going to be doing the collar, but I had actually done that. I had to just attach the sleeves and sew the side seams from cuff to hem.

I will be getting more yard and starting another sweater after I use my scraps to refresh my mind on how to do these steps.

I probably messed up what I did a year ago, but I hope you can figure out what I did with my explanation. 

2 years ago
Cynthia,  when you joined the shoulders and the sleeves,  had you left long enough ends to use?  That is a good way of reducing the number of ends to sew in...  😊
Joy

2 years ago
From my answer above

I had live stitches for the sleeve attachment. The sleeve stitches were live. The sweater arm hole part were stitches that I picked up when I attached the sleeves. I just pulled out the needles after attaching both sections to the bed. I laid a yarn across the needles and manually pull the needles through with a loose enough stitch to allow the binding off without it being tight or pulling the armhole. Worked pretty good. I had to hand sew the section where the straight edge at the end of each side of the sleeve attached to the ledge on the body of the sweater. That is kind of clunky. I want to find out if there is a way to not have that ledge of about 7 stitches at each armhole beginning and the straight section at the ends of each side of each sleeve. Not a fan. It was not exactly squared off and it is clunky. 

I could not use a yarn tail. I needed the yarn from the wound yarn because I attached the two together by pulling the needles through the loops from the sleeve and armhole, with right sides together, with a loose stitch. Then I bound off and cut the yarn from that wound yarn ball, with a tail to fasten off. I did not hand sew the sleeve to the armhole.

That was faster, and I believe neater, than if I had hand stitched them together. I did have to hand stitch those ledge sections. There was a yarn tail in each of those 4 areas that I was able to use. I got lucky.

My granddaughter will be here in a couple weeks. It won't fit her yet, but I am going to ask her to try it on just so I have some kind of idea of sizes, and see if she finds it comfortable.

2 years ago
[QUOTE username=Cynthia Quill userid=6406272 postid=1333268356]

I had to hand sew the section where the straight edge at the end of each side of the sleeve attached to the ledge on the body of the sweater. That is kind of clunky. I want to find out if there is a way to not have that ledge of about 7 stitches at each armhole beginning and the straight section at the ends of each side of each sleeve. Not a fan. It was not exactly squared off and it is clunky. 
[/QUOTE]

Well, you don't have to do that little cast off at the start of the armhole if you don't want to.  You just end up with a true Drop Shoulder rather than what I call a "semi Drop."  A lot of people prefer to have that "ledge" because it does reduce bulk under the armpit and brings the shoulder line up nearer to the wearer's actual shoulder, but it really is a matter of choice.

Jenny

2 years ago
[QUOTE username=Jenny M Benson  Jenny M Benson userid=6733032 postid=1333271642]

Well, you don't have to do that little cast off at the start of the armhole if you don't want to.  You just end up with a true Drop Shoulder rather than what I call a "semi Drop."  A lot of people prefer to have that "ledge" because it does reduce bulk under the armpit and brings the shoulder line up nearer to the wearer's actual shoulder, but it really is a matter of choice.[/QUOTE]
_______________________________________________________________________
Here's a blog post on the topic.
https://www.knititnow.com/blog/1046/armhole-sleeve-choices-for-knitters

If you used the strawberry pattern, we call this a "square armhole".  Many knitters prefer the fit because of the armhole shaping and easy knitting.
 

For true drop-shoulder kids sweater (no "shefl") you could use the prickly pear

https://www.knititnow.com/knit/DynamicPattern/2173/prickly-pear

Here's a description of different sleeve styles

https://www.knititnow.com/learn/tutorial/513/analyzing-sweater-styles







Jenny[/QUOTE]

2 years ago
Cynthia,
You mentioned the shoulder seams.

There are 4 videos about shoulder seams in the Learning Library.  Everyone has their favorite.  Probably the most popular is the machine knitting version of the 3-needle bind off.
https://www.knititnow.com/learn/tutorial/202/shoulder-seams

here are some others:
https://www.knititnow.com/learn/tutorial/565/streamlined-sleeve-seam
https://www.knititnow.com/learn/tutorial/534/show-off-shoulder-seams
https://www.knititnow.com/learn/tutorial/1008/no-bulk-seam

I'm sure you'll the discover the method that works for you

2 years ago
I believe it was the last shoulder seam, No Bulk Seam, that I used at the shoulders. The first side I messed up a little, but I like the look. The other shoulder was a little tighter. This was a practice sweater, so I was not worried the two shoulders did not look alike. It will be a sample. I am foing to have to label it as to which shoulder seam I used for future reference.

2 years ago
I cannot wait to start another. I have to get some more yarn. I used more than I should have for the sweater, 😂😂😂😂. My other yarns are meant for the bulky machine. My first purchase. If I had knew then what I know now, I would not have purchased it at that time. 

I think I want to use a lighter weight yarn next time. I want to practice with a lightweight yarn before attempting a good sweater with lighter weight yarn. This yarn I used for this finished sweater if nice, but for a top that is versatile for wearing any time of year rather than a blouse, I would like a lighter weight yarn. I might have to get out my Brother fine gauge, or whatever it is called, machine? I am not sure my LK150 will really work well with a yarn that is a lighter weight than I just used? I will have to read up in it. I wish there was a good yarn store close by. Imprefer to see the yarn.