Dividing a knitted afghan

I have knitted a temperature afghan, but it is way too long. I would like to divide the afghan into 2 afghans. I am wondering if this is possible.
The yarn is acrylic, and the pattern is a chevron pattern.
I would be glad to attach a photo, but am unsure as to how to do.
Is it possible to split the afghan into 2 pieces?
Thank you!

Welcome to KH! Your knitting is lovely. How brave are you feeling? This video shows how to separate the work horizontally in stockinette. It would be trickier to do in your pattern but I think it should work for you. After separation you can bind off your newly live again stitches. HTH
Cut Your Knitting … Sweater Rescue

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Thank you for replying! I watched the video. It is scary for sure! Something I like about the way she does this is that I will be able to “add” the color that I will be losing! So, each of the parts will be complete!

The afghan is knit in garter stitch. I am not totally certain which stitches to pick up with the cable needle, but I will probably figure it out. If you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to ask! I am thinking I may ask Cheryl Brunette if I can find a way to do that.

Of course, the extra yarn for the afghan is long gone. So, I will need to order a skein of each color that will be affected by the cutting. I have already figured out where I will need to cut, so the colors are easy to figure out.

Please do not hesitate to give me suggestions!

Thank you again!

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I’m not sure that Cheryl is a available for questions these days but she might be. There are other videos on how to cut your knitting. I’m pretty sure Lucy Neatby posted one some years back; Roxanne Richardson addresses it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MyBt-CJsI My only suggestion is to work a swatch in pattern and practice on that. Should the stitches get away from you I’d think recapturing them is still possible. On my swatch I would purposely leave some loose to see how it works. This will be time consuming but oh my! what a skill to acquire.

Thank you so much!

I plan to order the yarn (the same color that I will be losing, so that I can “add” this row to one of the pieces), and I will use that yarn for a long swatch. I like the idea of using needles for the 2 “lifelines” instead of yarn, so that I can just begin knitting the “lost” row.

I realize this is going to be a process - and not very fast! I will take it very slow - do everything on my swatch first to see if my procedure is going to work.

As I think about dividing this afghan, I can already think of projects I have done that would have been much nicer if I had done this procedure on them. After learning this, I am sure that I will use on future projects as well!

Thank you for giving me the encouragement so that I can see that “I can do this”!

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My view is that things are impossible until we do them. Then they aren’t. I see no reason that you shouldn’t be able to do this. I’d suggest being mindful of the offset when working the other direction and maybe try to avoid having to do that but with garter stitch it might not even matter. You can do it. You’ll add to your mad skill set and I hope you brag about your results and share about your experience here where we can all share the happy with you.

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Hi,
I did hear from Cheryl! She is very helpful as well!

I will certainly post updates here. Maybe someone else is having the same issue!

Since this is a temperature afghan, my thought is to cut AFTER the last row of June - this would be the 1st row of July. So, I will need to add this row back after cutting. Because of the offset, it may be better to cut on the last day of June - that way, I am doing my garter stitch naturally, so to speak. If I do the cutting this way, after I add my row and bind off on the UPPER afghan, I will just bind off on the BOTTOM afghan - no chance of offset not looking right. Does this make sense to you?

Makes sense to me! In fact it’s what I was thinking too.

Hi,
I am making progress!
I have knitted a swatch of my pattern. My pattern for the temp afghan is variant of a ripple. So, my swatch looks like a big W.
While I was knitting my swatch, at various places I put in lifelines before doing the next row. This way, I could see what a lifeline would need to look like for both the 1st and 2nd row of the garter stitch.

Where I am planning to divide the afghan is between June 30 and July 1. In the pics, the highest pink yarn is July 1.
One lifeline I put in is in the 1st garter row for July 1. I really would not like to have to add rows here. I am hopeful that I will be able to just bind off these stitches. I have a bamboo 7 needle for the lifeline here.
My other lifeline is in the 1st garter row for June 30. It shouldn’t be hard to add the 2nd garter row and then bind off. I have a metal 7 for the lifeline here.

So, I think I am about ready to cut. I have a supply of my little plastic “pins” for catching stitches that I don’t realize I need to catch!

One question. My temp afghan is 36 inches wide. I am using a 32 and a 29 inch needle for my swatch. Do you think I need to buy 2 36 inch needles for the afghan? Also, I do have a 36 inch No 9 needle I could use for the afghan. Is the No 9 small enough, or is the 7 better to use?

Thank you for your encouragement!

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I’ve been quietly following along with this thread.
I love how planned you are with your practise swatch and with the yarn life lines so you can see the path of the stitches, that’s a great idea.

I think the needles you have will be fine for this, it’s ok to push the stitches together a little. Another option is to insert a yarn life line with a tapestry needle and this way the yarn can be very long, then transfer to your knitting needle after.

My main concern on this is how close your 2 rows are that you want to keep. Logically it works but in practise (of which I have not had loads but certainly some) I have more often lost an additional row when cutting my knitting. I think it is a skill which improves with practise. If this is the first time you have tried this then maybe start on a small regular square swatch a couple of times before moving on to your ripple swatch? Just a suggestion to give you more skill development opportunities.

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You may be planning to do this but rather than cut across the row, it may be safer to snip a stitch or two and tease out the yarn from the stitches. You can use a needle tip or the tip of a tapestry needle. If you take the first snip toward the middle of the knit fabric, you’ll have long enough tails to weave in later.
It’s a bit like this tutorial which admittedly is for a slightly different purpose.

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@mandp523, Do you have a color change between June 30 and July 1?

Can you tease out the woven ends And untie them instead of cutying either yarn?

My apologies if this was already asked and answered.

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Thank you to everyone who has replied!

Yes, I have orange for June 30 and pink for July 1.

I have an update! Today, I tried something different, and it worked better. For my lifelines, instead of using the 1st row of garter for both June 30 and July 1, I used the 2nd row of garter for both June 29 and June 30. I figured I could probably learn how to tink the 2 rows of June 30 on my bottom needle. And, this way, I could be cutting the 1st row of June 30. There is a reason that this went better! My afghan is a ripple, so for row 1 of the garter, every 13 stitches I have either an increase (cast on - knit 1 - cast on) or a decrease (knit 2 together). Yesterday I had a very difficult time seeing which stitches to put in my lifeline. Today, by cutting row 2 of the garter (I really snipped 1 thread, and then pulled out with a blunt needle stitch-by-stitch), the lifelines had just plain knit stitches on them (1 purl at each increase of decrease spot). This went much better! As you can

see in the pic, the top portion is my June portion - I cut the 2nd garter row, and then added June 30 (both rows). This portion is now ready to be bound off. The bottom portion of the pic is my July portion (July 1 is pink), with garter row 2 on the needle above the July 1 portion (in orange). I hope this makes sense to those of you who are following this!
I know how to do the bind off of my June portion, so no problem. But, I am not sure how to tink the garter row 2 from this July portion. And, after tinking, I will need to bind off. Not sure if that is a different technique than usual! I will search online if I can figure out what to search for! If anyone has an idea as to a search term, do not hesitate to let me know! Thank you for all of the encouragement!

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Looks good, you have worked out lots of solutions.

Working from the ‘wrong’ end of the knitting it won’t tink the way you can from the normal end. The row doesn’t ladder and even if you drop the stitches off the needle they just kind of sit there rather than unraveling… I don’t suggest just yanking out the life line though… you will probably need to tease the yarn out stitch by stitch like you did with the snipped row. There is a recommendation on a tutorial that if the yarn ends up getting too long and awkward to pull through the next stitch just cut it off so you can pull a shorter yarn through (if you don’t need to save the yarn and also keeping in mind any length you need for weaving in ends). Your stitches are nicely defined aren’t they so I think you’ll be able to reasonably easily get a needle into the stitch you want to keep as you tease the yarn through.

If you are feeling unsure about the spots where there was the cast on this could be another time to make a smaller swatch to have a go at that part a few times.

With the bind off, it’s just the same as normal, use your favorite bind off or one to match the bind off at the other end. You’ll be using a new piece of yarn for the bind off so will weave in the ends after.

Hope this helps a bit.

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Thank you for your explanation!

What I think you said about the wrong end, is that it won’t really tink. So, I need to cut one of the loops that feed a needle through that? I think this is what I was trying to avoid by cutting it where I cut. The row that needs to be cut is the straight knit (with just a few purls in there) (the orange row), and the row that will be the real last row (before binding off) (the pink row) will be the row that has the special increases and decreases. I can see some of the pink stitches, but not all of them. I think this part is going to be very, very slow so that I hopefully don’t drop a stitch too far down!

Then, I just bind off like normal, right?

My plan is to do the cutting on the temp afghan (after doing my lifelines with thread and then knitting needles), and get all of my stitches on the needles (I bet I still have some that I have to pick up with my plastic pins!). Then, I will add my 2 rows (for June 30) to the regular knitting part, and bind off.

After this part is done, I will practice with my swatch cutting the orange stitches and getting the pink stitches on the needle. Then, I will do on the temp afghan. And, bind off!

Thank you for all of your encouragement and help! I am truly learning how to do this, and I am happy to be learning this new skill.

Yes you’ve pretty much got it.

I think you must already have a loose yarn tail end of orange from the row you already cut. This yarn tail can be drawn through stitch by stitch to undo each stitch slowly so I don’t think you necessarily need to snip again. The yarn tail will however become very long which can be a pain pulling through each stitch and in that sense snipping the tail end shorter can be useful.

I understand what you mean about the trickier part of the pink row, but most of it is easy to pick up and you will be slowly pulling the orange yarn through each stitch and picking up each pink stitch. When you get to the tricky bit you can probably stretch the fabric out a bit and follow the route of travel carefully to grab the trickier stitch. You could even tie a thinner thread (like embroidery thread) to the orange yarn tail so that a life line goes into those tricky stitches and you can pull the life line upwards to pull out the fabric, and dig out the pink stitch. One way or another that orange has to come out and the pink saved but I do think you will manage it. I think it is incredibly useful that you have a colour change there and can see exactly what is coming out and what is to be kept.

Again, if you aren’t sure knit up a tiny swatch, no need for the ripple even, just garter stitch and then undo the cast on end and just pull at the yarn and fabric and see how it reacts - not tinkable but doesn’t totally ladder. The stitches can get a bit small and need digging out.

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Thank you so much for the explanation!

I completely finished the June 30 part. It was a challenge at times, but I got all of the stitches from the snip, and then I did both June 30 rows - I had snipped the first June 30 row - the 2nd June 30 row is on the needle with my July 1 part. After binding off in pattern, I redid the top stitching that I had done on this part.

Now I will play with my swatch (already have - was bottom part in last pic) and learn how to get my pink stitches on a needle. Since my stitches on the needle will be row 1 of July 30, do I bind off using the 2nd row of my garter stitch, and start where my 2nd row would start? Or, do I bind off in pattern using row 1 of my garter stitch (these would be the increases and decreases - not just knit/purl) and begin on either side? My thought is that if I want to have a zigzag for my end I need to bind off using row 1 of my garter, and it won’t matter on which side I begin.

Do you have any thoughts on this?

Thank you to everyone for the encouragement and ideas!

I made a mistake in my last post in the 2nd paragraph. It should say,
“Since my stitches on the needle will be row 1 of July 1” NOT July 30. Sorry.

Whilst I can’t answer exactly what you have asked about bindingmoff in pattern with increases and decreases (maybe some kne else can), what I can tell you is that the pink stitches which are going to be worked in the opposite direction are now half a stitch out of line with the rest of the fabric.

Just knitting garter will probably not look any different. Just binding binding off will probably not look any different either. But putting in increases and decreases half a stitch out will likely show as it will be out of alignment.

I have seen a tutorial on this, it was a way to make it look in line if you really really need a pattern to continue, but I have no idea where that tutorial was. I think it was something like a k2tog and a make 1, something like that, at the stitch you need to look like it lines up. Maybe some else has seen this and can lead you to the tutorial?

Otherwise though, you will get practise on your swatch and see what works best for you.
My hunch is to just bind off and it will be fine, but I am a novice knitter and only have a little experience of knitting the wrong direction from doing it myself.

Great job on the half done by the way, looks fabulous!

Thank you!

I have now got all of my pink stitches on the needle. They are not quite ready for bind off, but I can fix as I bind off, I think. In the areas where I have increases and decreases, the stitch count isn’t quite right. But, I think I can fix pretty easily - no one is going to tell if I use a different decrease on this row! And, I have determined that I cannot bind off “in pattern”, because if I do this, my increases and decreases will be reversed! So, I will watch out for that.
Not much to go! May not get done today, but maybe tomorrow.
I will be sure and post when I finish!

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