First Time Shaping a Jacket

How-to Questions
1

Hi, I’m making a jacket/cardigan as a present. I started working from the bottom up, and I’ve just about gotten to the point where I have to start shaping the armhole and neck… this is my first time knitting anything more complex than a scarf and let’s just say I’m a little confused.

Here are the directions given in the pattern:
Shape Armhole: (RS) Decrease 1 st at Armhole edge on this row, then every other row 6 (7, 10) times- 31 sts remain…
Shape Neck:(WS) BO 8 (8,10) sts at beginning of this row, then at neck edge, decrease 1 st every row 5 (7,6) times- 18 (19,21) sts remain…
[u]Shape Shoulder: /u At armhole edge BO 6 (6,7) sts twice, then 6 (7,7) sts once.

So I have several questions:

  1. What do they mean by RS, I know this stands for right side, but they also label the first row of the pattern (RS)? When RS is mentioned, does that simply mean to have the right side facing me?

  2. What would be the best decreasing method to use, they don’t mention anything in the book, so just knitting two together?

  3. When it says “BO 8 (8,10) sts at beginning of this row, then at neck edge” what does this mean? The pattern is ultimately trying to get me to make a square neck.

  4. Lastly, what do they mean by “Bind off 6 (6,7) sts twice”? Does that simply mean to bind of 12 stitches for say the smallest size?

Thank you so much for any help!!!

2

  1. When RS is mentioned it means that that row is going to be a right side row…start that row with all stitches in your left hand and the right side facing you.

  2. If the edge that you are decreasing is slanting up to the right, use a K2tog decrease and if the edge that you are decreasing is slanting up to the left you can use a SSK decrease. Videos for both can be found here if you don’t already know how to do them.

  3. You are going to be doing the armhole shaping and the neckline shaping at the same time. So it says to BO 8(8,10) sts at beginning of this row, that is the armhole edge that they are talking about. Then also, at the neck edge which is at the end of right side rows/beginning of wrong side rows, you are going to decrease 1 stitch every row for 5(7,6) rows. So putting all this together, you are going to BO 8(8,10)sts at the beginning of that row and then at the end of that same row you are going to decrease 1 stitch. Now at the end of the row so you will turn your work around, and because it has asked you to decrease 1 stitch at the neck edge every row for 5(7,6) rows you will decrease one stitch on the purl side at the neck edge (beg of purl row) then work to the end of the row, etc., until 5(7,6) stitches have been decreased at the neck edge. At this point you will have 18(19,21) stitches remaining.

  4. i At armhole edge BO 6 (6,7) sts twice, then 6 (7,7) sts once. [/i] What this means is that at only the armhole edge (which in this case is the beginnings of right side rows) you will BO 6 (for the smallest size) stitches twice…this doesn’t mean that you do all of those at the same time ie. BO12. You will BO 6sts at the armhole edge then work to the end of the row. Turn your work around and work back. Then at the beginning of the next RS row you will again BO 6sts, work to the end of that row, turn your work around and work back. Then it says to BO 6 (again, for the smallest size) sts once which just means that once you get back to the start of your next RS row you will BO 6 stitches one last time and then complete the row.

Hope this helps. xxx

3

Thank you so much, so far it all makes sense!!!