The Knitting Fiend

Remember I said I’d never knit pockets before. Well, now I have. Jim’s pocket looks spiffy! If I do say so myself.

Jim campaigned hard for these. Not only did he show me the pockets in the magazine, but later on when I mentioned I’d never knit pockets, he showed me his favorite store bought cardigan. Yes, it has pockets. He pointed out that they were handy for stashing business cards or small items.

Jim also expressed great confidence in my ability to teach myself pockets. In the end, he wouldn’t buy my claims of incompetence, insisting that, if it didn’t work out, I’d just do it over again anyway. (I guess a guy learns something after you’ve been sitting next to on the couch knitting for over 20 years.)

So, of course, his sweater will have pockets!

Knitting pockets turns out to be easy, if somewhat tedious. Here is “How to knit pockets with a horizontal opening, illustrated”!

---

Knit two pocket linings the width and the depth you want the pocket to be. Bear in mind: knit fabric stretches, so you shouldn’t plan big pockets someone might stuff lots of junk into. Just big enough for a small note pad, or business cards is fine. I made Jim’s 4″ deep and about 6″ wide; they were 23 stitches by 22 rows.

Knit the sweater to depth you want for the pocket plus two extra rows. I knit 24 rows after the ribbing.

Place the stitches you need for the pocket width on strings or stitch holders. If you examine the photo, I’ve placed 23 stitches on each side of the front on strings of light blue yarn. I put the pocket closer to the side seam than to the front edge, because that’s what they did in the pattern Jim admired. There are 9 stitches between the edge of the pocket and the center front edge, and 5 stitches between the other edge of the pocket and the “phony seam” between the front and back. Notice, I also have light blue yarn indicating the phoney seam– I added that to take the picture. Normally, I wouldn’t bother to baste a thread through while knitting.

Knit across to the stitches on the string. Drop them off the needle. In the photo above and to the right, I have dropped the 23 stitches off the needle.

Next, pick up a flap, hold it behind the gap left by the dropped stitches, and knit up the stitches from a flap. In the next photo above and to the left, I’m knitting the first of the 23 flap stitches. Continue knitting until you reach the other set of stitches on the string and repeat with the other flap.

(If this is the front page of the blog, click more to read the article.)

I then ignored the little openings and just knit until the current skein ran out. I strongly advise doing this when yarn is variegated, since continuing to knit avoids an interruption in the color progression right after you add the flaps. If you want, you can just keep knitting the sweater and finish the pockets up later. I was anxious about the pockets, so I didn’t want to wait too long.

When the yarn ran out, I snapped a picture to show how things look. The pocket linings look like dangly little bits. In the picture, I folded one pocket lining up so you could see it, and folded the other one behind the sweater where it belongs.

To knit the trim for the pockets, I slid a small diameter needle into the pocket stitches on hold. I checked there were 23 stitches, cut the light blue yarn and attached my dark blue wool. With the right side facing me, I began knitting in 1 x 1 ribbing, beginning and ending with a knit-stitch.

I picked 1 x 1 rib because it doesn’t curl, and it matches the ribbing I used for the cuffs and hem of the sweater. You could also pick garter stitch or seed stitch. However, if you pick these other stitches, you may want to reduce a few stitches across the trim, because both garter and seed stitch tend to spread wide; rib tends to draw in, which is preferable in a pocket trim.

Of course, you all also wonder, why did I begin and end with a knit stitch? I had noticed the pattern I was reading began and ended with a knit stitch; it suggested that this simplified sewing the flange down later. Since I haven’t tested knitting the trim with purl stitches on the edges, I have no idea whether it actually is easier to sew neatly when the edge stitches are knit stitches. However, it wasn’t too difficult to do this way, so I guess I recommend this method!

I worked ribbing for 6 rows, knitting back and forth. Here’s the trim after 4 rows. I then bound off loosely, using a larger diameter needle. (I use the larger needle because I tend to bind off tightly otherwise.)

Using a tapestry needle, I sewed everything down neatly. I didn’t take pictures of the sewing up, because there is just no way I can hold the camera and sew. My main pieces of advice: Don’t pull the yarn too tight, or you’ll see a ridge. When sewing the vertical edges, just tack down every other row; you don’t need to tack down every row. Finally, watch carefully to see your stitches aren’t showing from the front.

The final picture is shown up at the top left. As I said before: it looks spiffy! (And I haven’t even wet blocked yet.) Anyway, I think you can add a pocket to any sweater you like fairly easily. You have to decide where you want to place it, and how big you want it to be, but other than that, they are just rectangle. You don’t need a great deal of precision, and they look pretty good.