The Knitting Fiend

I’ve decided to give this sweater a name: The Yoke-u-lator Sweater. Clever, huh? Yeah, I could call it something like “The Circe” or “Caldera”, but what’s the point? What knitters remember about my patterns is they can run a program to get the pattern in their size. “Yoke-u-lator” says that.¹

Earliler this week, I cast on and knit the neck band; I’ve now raised the back neck. See the bit that hangs down? That’s the part that raises the back neck!

I know, that looks backwards. But when the rest of the yoke is added and the sweater is worn, you’ll see that part shifts up, and the back neck is raised compared to the front neck. When you knit a sweater with a nicely fitted “crew neck” or “turtleneck” type opening, raising the back neck prevents the front neck from riding up and feeling like it’s choking you.²

How do you “raise” the neck? It’s done by working some short rows over the stitches of the back neck. I’m only going to explain the general idea here: The yokeulator will provide more specific directions. The general idea of short rows is you work back and forth, but turn the work before you work all the stitches on the left needle tip.

In this case, what you are going to do is first place the stitches for the back neck on the circular needle you plan to use for stockinette. Leave those for the front neck on the ribbing needle. The yoke-u-lator w ill tell you how many are required for the back neck and front neck.

Next, with the “public” or “outside” of the garment facing, and knit across the “back neck stitches” to the point labeled with the number “1″ shown in the figure to the right. Notice there are stitches between the number 1 and the edge? (There were 3 on the right tip when I stopped knitting; there may be a different number for your sweater. The yoke-u-lator will calculate the number.)

Even though there are still stitches on the right needle tip, you need to turn the work so the purl side (or inside of the garment) is facing and purl row 2. However, to avoid a hole, you work a “wrap and turn”, details are provided in the footnotes.³

Next, you purl over to the number labeled “2″; wrap and turn.⁴

Next work row 3: This is fiddly! Examine the figure above;y ou will knit up to point 3 in the figure. Notice point 3 is further to the right than point 1? That’s important– you will leave 1 fewer stitch on the right needle tip each time you work an odd row. This means that the last stitch you work will have been wrapped when you worked the previous row. (There were 2 stitches on my left needle tip when I turned.) Then you wrap and turn.

I bet that sounds easy enough — but I left something out. While working over to the point labeled “3″ you will increase 4 stitches evenly over the stitches you actually knit! Those increases are indicated with the red dots in the figure above. You want to sprinkle the increases about evenly — but don’t fret too much about absolutely precision. (The increases prevent the neck from jutting out unattractively. )

Row 4: Purl until 2 stitches are left on the left needle tip. (Note: the last stitch you purl when working row 4 was wrapped when you worked row 2.)

Row 5 and up: Continue to repeat rows 3 and 4– each time leaving 1 stitch less when you turn– until you have wrapped the edge stitch on a purl row and also, increasing 4 stitches evenly when working odd numbered rows.

It’s actually easy to do– but harder to describe because you need to do two things at once on those pesky odd numbered rows! When you finish, the back neck is “raised.”

After the neck is raised, find two safety pins. Hang these between the front and back neck stitches so that later on you know where the shoulders are. (This will help you when you divide for the sleeves.) Pick up the front neck stitches on the circualr needle holding the back neck stitiches, organizing so you can begin knitting rounds without breaking the yarn.

From now on you will knit all stitches working around and around and around, occasionally increasing stitches to widen the work. I’ll describe in more detail in a future article!

---

1. I will also spell this yokeulator and yokulator to maximize the probability that people doing google searches on this non-word have a hope of finding the thing!

2. Notice the conditions: Turtleneck or crewneck? Nicely fitted? (As opposed to wide neck– or off the shoulder.) Most my circular yoke sweaters have these type of necklines. The main reason to shape the back neck is to make the front neck drop down a bit so it doesn’r rise up and choke you. If the sweater is an off the shoulder design, or has a very wide neck opening, you can skip this step. The Yoke-u-lator is designed to actually fit the neck— not be off the shoulder.

3. To work a wrap and turn at the end of a knit row: The yarn is in back. [ Bring the yarn forward as to purl, slip the next stitch, take the yarn back as to knit. Now, turn as you would to start working another row. After turning, slip the first stitch.] (The stuff in the [ ] is the wrap and turn. The wrapped stitch is never knit– it’s slipped twice and the yarn ends up “wrapped” around it!) You are now ready to purl the next row.

4. To work a wrap and turn at the end of a purl row. The yarn is positioned in front. [ Slip the next stitch, bring the yarn back as to knit. Turn the work. Slip the stitch. Bring the yarn back as to knit.] (The stuff in the [] is the wrap and turn. ) You are now ready to knit.

---

When knitting a circular yoke sweater top down, it’s easiest to just cast on the neck band and knit it right away. In principle, you can chose any stitch you like for a neck. Still, ribbing is the most popular, fool proof choice. Ribbing stretchy, permitting it to pass over your head, yet draws in so it conforms to the wearer’s neck. It doesn’t curl and almost everyone already knows how to work it. Garter stitch also works and doesn’t curl– but sometimes a knitter needs to fiddle a bit to make sure the neck fits over the head and also conforms to the neck. Sometimes curling neck-bands come in fashion: if you want a curling neckband, knit it in stockinette.

In nearly all cases, you’ll want to use smaller needles to knit a neckband than for the rest of the sweater. Why? Well, for one thing, most ribbing looks better knit on smaller needles. For another, the neck trim gets a fair amount of wear and slightly tighter knitting tends to wear better than looser knitting.

I chose 1 x 1 ribbing for my neckband. To determine the number of stitches to cast on, I:

• Measured my head circumference which is 21″ . To obtain the “head opening” size, I multiplied by 0.9; that is 21 * 0.9 = 18.9″.
• I determined my stitch gauge in stockinette (yes– even though the neck is in ribbing.) That was 3.25 st/inch. I multiplied the head opening size by my stitch gauge to obtain the number of stitches, then rounded to 4. So, I got 18.9″ * 3.25 = 60 stitches.

used my stitch gauge in stockinette.

I then cast on loosely using my favorite cast on for neck, joined without twisting and and knit a 1 1/4″ long tube. There it is!

Ok, so I bet knitters reading this have at least three questions:

1. What’s that white stuff?
2. Why multiply by your head size by 0.9 to get the neck opening size.
3. Why use the stockinette gauge to figure the neck trim?
4. Why round to 4?

Ok. Answers: (more…)

Guess what? I’m knitting a circular yoke sweater top down. Guess why? I was motivated by Marie who wrote me a nice email asking:

First I want to than you for all the great pattern generators you have posted. I was wondering if you know how to make round yoke cardigan sweaters in different weight yarns. I have a really awful time sewing up sweaters and would love to find a place to make this kind of sweater so I wouldn’t have to do so much sewing together of them. [...] Thank you again. Marie

Guess what? I do know how to knit these.

I also know loads of women who love this type of sweater. The circular yoke tends to flatter feminine curves, you can adjust the fit as you knit, and the shape is classic. And here’s some more good news: they are very, very easy to chart. In fact, the only difficult thing about charting them is there are zillions of correct ways to work them correctly.

I know that sounds weird, but here’s the problem. Suppose I can describe one way to shape the sweater. Someone will say “But I read knitting guru so-and-so’s formual and I thought it said this!” The answer is: That works too!

In fact, both Barbara Walker and Elizabeth Zimmerman published “specific formulas” for shaping circular yokes; the two methods seem entirely different! Later, I’ll explain how they are “really” the two extreme limits of the “single generic yet flexible formula” for shaping circular yoke sweaters!

As I knit this, I’m going to blog about the sweater. I’ll cover at least these things: (more…)