The Knitting Fiend

Posted on 12.07.05 by lucia @ 9:37 am

Janet Szabo, owner of Big Sky Knitting and moderator of the Aran Knits yahoo groups email list, will be leading a top down Aran Knit-A-Long beginning in January, 2006. Guidelines for the knit-a-long are posted at Big Sky Knitting's FLAK knitalong page. Janet is a wonderful designer and teacher. So, if you follow along, you'll be able to read some really good tips for designing and knitting a custom Aran to fit you.

As it happens, I designed a saddle shoulder Aran and knit it top down last fall. Even though my basic design is a bit different from Janet's, some knitters might be interested in finding my tips and techniques. This list may simplify that task:

Aran Knitting Stitch Patterns, Tips and Techniques.

Sleeve Knit Top Down

General Design of Aran. Design tips for motifs.

Scaling Up Sizes. Design: Discusses increasing the size of an Aran design.

Sleeve Cap. Design: How to design a sleeve cap for a semi-fitted sleeve.

Sleeve Length. Design: Sleeve Length.

Sleeveless Aran. How Aran looks before sleeves are attached.

Finished the knitting. Progress: How the sweater looks with one sleeve missing.

Aran to Underarms. Progress: To underarms.

Full Twisted Rib. Stitch Pattern for ribbing on Arans.

Trinity Stitch. Stitch Pattern: A traditional Aran stitch pattern.

Stitch Pattern: Half Twisted Rib. Stitch Pattern: Interesting variation or Rib. (I advise using full twisted rib though.)

Twisted Column. Stitch Pattern: Knit a twisted rib stitch to make it pop.

Moss stitch. Stitch Pattern: Popular background stitch pattern.

Seed Stitch. Stitch Pattern: Popular background stitch.

Celtic Flourish. Swatching the major stitch pattern.

Pick Up Stitches for Back. Technique

Increase 5 stitches into 1. Technique used in Celtic Flourish.

Pillar Decrease. Technique for Celtic Flourish stitch pattern.

Knit Sleeve Top Down. Technique.

Join front to back. Technique.

Phoney Seams. Technique: Create crisp fold lines at side seams.

Attach sleeve to body. Technique: Graft saddle, mattress stitch rest of sleeve.

Cross without a cable needle. Technique: How I cross medium wide cables.

How to use a pull skein. Technique: Illustrated with Plymouth Galway.

Wicker work. Technique: Read to learn to twist two stitches without a cable needle.

Shoulder Strips. Technique: Saddle shoulder strips illustrated.

Binding off. Technique: Smooth bind off when knitting rib circular.

Pick up stitches for neck. Technique: Useful if you cast on neck using waste yarn.

Provisional Cast On. Technique: Useful if you want to work sleeves separate and graft later.

Based on questions I'm reading Aran Knits, visitors may want to know these tidbits:

Jim's Men's extra-small sweater was knit using Plymouth Galway. I bought ten 50 gram skeins and used roughly 8. I had enough left over to knit a flying spaghetti monster and a spiral ear flap hat. I still have more left over.
I think Janet recommends Cascade 220, Elann Peruvian Highland and Knitpicks Wool of the Andes. The guidelines at her site list required yardages.

Stumble it (and place in Knitting/crochet!)

Please leave comments!

4 Comments »

I am knitting an aran sweater and the pattern reads yarn forward and then later yarn back.How do you do this?
Thank you
Anna

Comment by Anna Cooper (0 comments.) — 3/13/2006 @ 10:52 am
As far as I can tell, the term “yarn forward” is the most inconsistently used term in knitting. I’ve seen several “definitive” definitions.

I discuss yarn over forwards and backwards here:
http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/379

Comment by lucia — 3/13/2006 @ 10:54 am
[…] Lot’s of people posts questions about how to make the final bind off look good when knitting circular. I may show how I do that more detail sometime later; then you can decide if you like my method. But, I need to wait until I knit the collar, or cuffs, because I forgot to take pictures! This is filed with stitch patterns and Aran Knitting. Previous posts: ( Ready For Ribbing. | Home | You gotta admit, this is cool!) Please leave comments! Filed under: Hand Knitting and Knitting and Knit and Aran and techniques Trackback URL for this knitting blog post: http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/445/trackback/ Lucia Liljegren: Copyright 2005-2006 Rights to all site content including knitting patterns, generators and haikus reserved. […]

Pingback by The Knitting Fiend » Blog Archive » Half Twisted Rib (291 comments.) — 12/3/2006 @ 9:47 pm
Can someone knit mine for me? Iv given up!

Comment by Glenys Bowes — 1/13/2008 @ 2:31 am

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