Convert from flat to circular?

How do you take a pattern that is written flat, and covert it to in the round??? For instance, a sweater pattern that is written with front and back knitted seperately.

I can figure out how to do the body portion, pretty straight forward, but what happens when you get to the sleeves?

When you get to the sleeves you have to dividde your stitches and knit the front and back separately. Unless you want to steek :roflhard:

Then I usually 3NBO the shoulder seams together and pick up stitches around the armholes, so I can knit the sleeves in the round.

Thanks Julie!

So to take this a bit further…I’ve got the part where you divide for front and back and 3NBO the shoulders, now the picking up of stitches for the sleeves.

How do you know how many stitches to pick up for the sleeves? If it’s a drop shoulder sleeve (I think that’s what it’s called anyways, you know, when the body of the sweater is pretty much square) I can figure it out but what if there is armhole shaping, how do you do it?

TIA! :thumbsup:

I’m reviving this because I have this exact question about converting a pattern from flat to circ just for the sleeves. These are sleeves being knit to a square body (sown in the pattern pic), but there is a lace pattern involved that goes like this…

WS Purl
RS Row 1 yo, K2tog
WS Purl
RS Row 2 SSK, yo

There is 1 knit stitch at each end of a row for seaming. The pattern says to pick up 61 sts along the armhole edge, then start decreasing in regular intervals to the cuff. Should I only pick up 59 stitches to eliminate the selvedge sts?

Seems simple enough if I use markers at the armhole to remember to do an all purl round for the WS row. Any other “gotchyas” to look out for the convert this??

I just charted out the lace, and apparently I have to keep all 61 sts in order for the lace pattern to be completed on each row. Nothing to do but to pick up the stitches and give it a whorl! xxx

You won’t do any purl rows. You’ll knit the ‘purl’ rows to do it in the round.

OMG Ingrid THANKS!!! :muah:

I totally forgot about that teeny tiny completely mandatory little fact about circular knitting :oops:

Phew! Good thing I hadn’t started yet.

You would have noticed with the very first stitch. :lol:

Just wanted to revive this thread. I was just looking through all of my books to try and figure out how to do this. Thanks for all of the great information.

What is steek?

That’s funny because I was wondering the same thing. :aww:

A steek is when you knit something in the round, then cut it. Some Norwegian or Swedish knitting is done that way; knit a tube, then cut on the edges for armholes and down the front if you want to make it a cardigan.