The Knitting Fiend

When I first started charting my own sweaters, I was puzzled by yoke sweaters. I read widely different instructions in Elizabeth Zimmerman’s “Knitting Without Tears” and Barbara Walker’s “Knitting from the Top”. I dug up a bunch of patterns and noticed each used apparently different charting rules.

Why did they all seem so different? Well, it turns out there is a sort of rule for charting these sweaters, and, had I known it, I would have recognized the entirely different sounding rules were really all the same. The reason they look different is the rule are very flexible!

Very flexible. And that’s a good thing — it means a designer can vary the rate of shaping to fit in a large variety of fair-isle stitch patterns.

In this article, I’ll reveal “the shaping rules” for shaping a sweater; I’ll discuss the first rule at some length. Still, to simplify, I’ll limit my discussion to stitch types similar to stockinette and fair-isle. (This means if you want to use some fancy stitch type — like garter stitch, weird ribbing cables etc., you may need to ask me more questions.)

When knitting a sweater from the neck down in stockinette or fair-isle, you can create a good shoulder fit rule one says: increase stitches at a rate equivalent to 8 stitches every 2 rounds in the region between the neck and shoulders.¹ (You can and will change this increase rate below the shoulders — most people will increase stitches more slowly below the shoulders.)

Notice I highlighted “equivalent”? Well, you may increase at a rate of 8 stitches every 2 rounds, but you can also increase 12 stitches/3 rounds , 16 stitches/4 rounds, or 32 stitches/ 16 rounds or any other rate that is equivalent to 8 every 2 rounds. In fact, you can increase 4 stitches every round (though it turns out that would be an insane decision.)

Ok, but there is a second rule: you need to distribute the increases so the yoke becomes circular.²

Notice in the photo of my yoke, I show 8 dots across the front of each increase round? They look evenly spread out each round, but kinda-sort line up? Yes, I’m didn’t really knit a circle, I knit a 16 sided polygon. But no one in the world can really see the difference between a 16 sided polygon and a circle. So, provided you decide to increase at a rate of 16 stitches / 4 rounds, the yoke will look circular.

What if you increase 8 stitches every two rounds and kinda-sort line up the increases? Well, the yoke look a little octagonal. Realistically few are going to notice that; so your sweater will look find if you just increase evenly across rounds.

Now, remember I said increasing 4 stitches every round is insane? Well, if you literally increase 4 every round and line the increases up, the yoke is going to look distinctly squarish. You can fix that by doing complicated shifting every fourth increase round– but it’s better to just increase at intervals of 2 or more rounds.

Ok, but I bet you noticed the increases only “kinda-sorta” line up every other increase round. Well, that’s because there is a third optional rule: when sprinkling the increases around, you might want to avoid creating a spiral when increasing.

A spiral you ask? Well, have you ever noticed that when you knit a hat top down and line up all the increases, the increases form a spiral? Sort of like the one forming to the left? Well, if you’ve shaped the back neck, which I did, and you let the increases spiral, the back neck could end up on the side neck. That’s not good.

My yoke-u-lator picked one method of avoiding that — I just don’t line up the increases! On odd numbered increase rounds, I slip the round marker increase immediately. Then, I increase evenly. On even numbered increase rounds, I knit a bunch of stitches and then increase, organizing so I increase at the end of the round. It turns out the increases are shifted one stitch– which believe it or not, is sufficient to prevent spiraling!

Oh… and finally, another rule! Make sure there are at least 3 increase rounds between the neck and armholes. The reason: Well, if you only have one, the sweater is going to fit like a paper bag drawn closed with a draw string. So, make sure there are at least 3.

So the rules:

1. Between the neck and shoulders, increase at a rate equivalent to 8 stitches every 2 rounds.
2. Spread the increases evenly across a rounds. (If necessary, shift then so they don’t line up on different increase rounds.)
3. Rule 3: Fiddle to avoid spiraling.
4. Rule 4: Make sure there are at least 3 major increase rounds between the armholes and the neck.

If you achieve all these, you can then do anything decorative you want to jazz up the yoke.