The Knitting Fiend

A thing of beauty, eh?

Other knitting bloggers always show things that are beautiful while being knit. I can do that too — when I hand knit. But, boy, some machine knit things can look like a mess when they first come off the machine.

I mean, look at this thing.

This is the main sweater piece for the sideways knit raglan I’m charting and knitting. That big gap is the center front; I will attach the button bands later. To create this thing, I cast on at the center front and shaped a V neck using short rows. To do that, I put the carriage on hold, put all the needles for the neck depth into hold (so they wouldn’t knit when I made a carriage pass). Then, I progressively moved those needles back into work.

I knit toward the side seam, shaping the raglan shoulder by moving needles from the far left hand side into hold. After I’d moved enough needles for the armhole depth into hold, I knit a few more rows to give some room under the armhole. One half of the center front was complete.

I did not bind off.

Instead, I threaded the mast with an ugly grey acrylic waste yarn, and knit a few rows. I raised a few needles to make the sleeve longer than the body, hung a scrap of grey waste yarn, knit 2 more rows, and started shaping the sleeves.

I took a photo. The narrow cuff is to the far left of the machine. In the middle of the needle bed, you can see the front of the sweater below the waste yarn, and the sleeve being shaped just above the waste yarn. The raglan shaping is on the right.

Notice the weights under the sleeve portion of the knitting? When knitting short rows, you need to shift the weights regularly. Place them under the needles that are knitting, not those in hold. If you look carefully, you’ll even see the prongs of one weight hung from back to front under the underarm. I found that more effective than hanging it the usual way — otherwise, because of the folding and distortion, the weight just rested on the waste yarn, and didn’t weigh down the stitches on those needles under the armhole.

Once the sleeve had enough rows for the underarm, I resumed shaping the raglan. I moved three needles for the raglan to upper work position. Fearing the carriage might jam, I pushed the work against the gate pegs, as you can see to the right. I moved the carriage slowly for that first row. When working the front, I had taken needles progressively out of work; now I moved the needles into work to shape.

Once I finished shaping the raglan line on the sleeve, I had a very weird, folded distorted looking thing on the machine. But, I could see the diagonal line for the raglan. I knew I wouldn’t have to sew that. Yippee!

I knit to the other edge of the sleeve, shaping another raglan line. By this point, I was used to shaping those raglans, because the procedure is pretty repetitive.

Once again, I didn’t bind off at the edge of the sleeve. Instead, I did something I’d never done before: I folded the sweater up, and re-folded along the waste yarn, then hung the loops from the last row of the front on the needles.

You can see how the knitting looked in the photo to the right. To the left of the needle bed, there are needles holding waste yarn after the sleeve stitches only. Before knitting the next row, I dumped those stitches off, and took those needles completely out of work. To the far right, you can see the raglan sleeve is still in hold. The middle needles in upper working position hold body stitches hung over waste yarn.

The carriage was set to “H” (partial knitting.) I threaded the carriage. I doubled checked to make sure the last row of body stitches was hung– as opposed to the first row of sleeve stitches!

I swallowed hard, and I knit across the row. Knit stitches formed on the needles holding the body stitches for the front. They also pulled through the waste yarn. That seamed the back to the front! No seam to sew.

Still, the whole trick relies on removing that waste yarn later. I’d never done this “rehang and just continue to knit” procedure. So, while knitting, I fretted that it would be difficult to remove the waste yarn. ( In fact, I fretted so much, I crawled under the machine while knitting and cut a snip and unraveled a few stitches of waste yarn to reassure myself the loops for the back really went through those through the front. But showing how to remove it is getting ahead of myself. I’ll show you tomorrow.)

Of course, the “thing” on the machine was even more weirdly distorted and folded than ever.

I continued knitting. I worked the raglan shaping again. Another diagonal — just like the one illustrated above. Then I worked to the center back. There’s no real excitement after that, because every step was similar to one I had already worked.

No, excitement, but I’ll admit I was getting nervous as I neared completion. Would I mess up, do something weird with the carriage and drop everything on the floor? Well, I just knit carefully, shifting my weights, and constantly checking that the work wasn’t hanging up on the gate-pegs.

Luckily, nothing “exciting” happened. I got the the other center front, bound off, l laid the “almost sweater” on the floor and snapped the picture at the top of this article. Yeah, the sweater is distorted. But you can see the back lies behind the front. The sleeves look strange because they are still fused to the sides of the front and back. But, the shoulders are there!

On to taking of off the waste yarn, seaming those sleeves, adding ribbing and button bands. This thing will evolve into a sweater soon.