Help with a sweater pattern?

How-to Questions
1

I’m a little confused.

I’m knitting this sweater: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall02/PATTtopsecret.html

I’m currently knitting the yoke after joining the sleeves.

When I joined, the pattern said to, “Leaving 9 [9, 10, 10, 10] sts from each sleeve and 9 [9, 10, 10, 10] sts from each side of the body [diametrically opposed] on holders, put the sts from the sleeves and the body on the 32” size 10.5 needle, placing a marker after moving 20 [20, 20, 21, 22] sts from the first sleeve.
162 [168, 174, 182, 194] sts on needle."

Okay, so I did that, but now I’m not sure I did it right.

When I joined the sleeves to the body of the sweater, how do I know I did it the way the pattern wants me to do it? :lol:

What I did was…I joined sleeve 1 to one side of the body, put the front body stitches onto the needle cable, joined the second sleeve to the body, then put the back body stitches onto the needle cable. (Gosh, I’m not explaining this very well…I hope someone understands!)

So I started knitting the yoke from the first stitch after placing the second sleeve onto the needles.

Now the pattern says to, “Next row: Dec 28 [24, 24, 22, 24] sts evenly around to marker. 126 [136, 142, 152, 162] sts on needle.”

But I’m worried I don’t have the marker where it should be.
I did put it on after moving 22 (I’m knitting the biggest size) stitches from the first sleeve, but again, if I joined the sleeves wrong, it wouldn’t be where it should be in the pattern, right?

If I do it the way I have the stitches now, I’d be decreasing across the front yoke from just after the second sleeve join to the middle of the first sleeve join.
Does that make sense?
Is that right or wrong?

Something is telling me I should be decreasing from mid-sleeve to mid-sleeve?

Or am I just overthinking here? :lol:

There are more decreases in the yoke as the pattern goes along, and I don’t want to do the wront thing so that my sweater is all lopsided once I’m done. :frowning:

Help?

2

The marker should be at one of the sleeve/body points where the sts were joined. And it can be just a stitch or two off, the decs don’t need to be at a specific place, just do them evenly spaced around the entire round.

3

Oh, wait…I’m confused again! :lol:

Am I supposed to be decreasing evenly for a whole round, and not just from where I joined the round to that first marker?

4

I’ve been mulling this over and I certainly see your question. It seems like these types of sweaters are usually decreased all the way around the yoke and not just in the front (or just in any one section), although I haven’t made that many of them. You said,

Something is telling me I should be decreasing from mid-sleeve to mid-sleeve?
Yeah, but it would be weird to decrease on half of each sleeve and not the other half, wouldn’t it?

“Leaving 9 [9, 10, 10, 10] sts from each sleeve and 9 [9, 10, 10, 10] sts from each side of the body [diametrically opposed] on holders, put the sts from the sleeves and the body on the 32” size 10.5 needle, placing a marker after moving 20 [20, 20, 21, 22] sts from the first sleeve.
162 [168, 174, 182, 194] sts on needle."
It seems like you have two choices, either you can begin putting the first sleeve on first and then, front and then the other sleeve and then the back. OR You could begin with the front, sleeve, back and then the other sleeve. If you did it the first way you would have a marker right after the first 22 stitches and then decrease from the beginning of the round over those 22 stitches. That can’t be right. OR put the 53 front stitches and then 22 of the sleeve stitches and then the marker and you would be decreasing like you said,
I’d be decreasing across the front yoke from just after the second sleeve join to the middle of the first sleeve join.
I’m with you that seems weird, but it seems to be what it is saying to do.

I see that there are further decreases later on all in the same place. Are there even enough stitches in that section do do all of them. LOL I just went and looked since I broached the question and no, there aren’t. There would only be 53+22=75 and it says to decrease 24+54+36. So we can’t be thinking right can we? (I am not feeling that I’m being a lot of help here, just trying to think it through with you, not giving you a “thus says me” answer.)

I noticed that there is a place you can click to contact the designer. Maybe you should try asking her. But it seems to me that putting all of the decreases in any one section would produce the lopsided result that you are trying to avoid. If it was me, I’d ask if that pans out, if it didn’t, I think I would do all of the decreases all the way around, just because that makes sense to me and the doing it in a section thing, doesn’t. :slight_smile:

5

I did try to contact the designer, but the email bounced back to me. :frowning:
I guess knitty didn’t update her email address.

I was thinking of decreasing evenly all the way around…that’s what makes the most sense to me.

But then, further on when it gets to the neck it says, “K 28 [31, 32, 34, 36] sts, place 2nd marker. TURN. P to 1st marker, TURN. K to 2nd marker, TURN. P to 1st marker, TURN.”

And that has me all confused again! :lol:

If the first marker is halfway through the sleeve, then I knit 36 stitches and place another marker, turn and purl back…

I’ll be knitting that part on one side of the sweater only, near a sleeve?
And again, that just doesn’t make sense to me. :frowning:

Argh! :frowning:

6

For that turning part, what makes sense to me is to have a marker at each side of the neck, over the center shoulder and do the turns there, or forget them. I don’t know if they want the short rows in front or back, and why? There are plenty of turtlenecks that don’t do any fancy turning. LOL

7

Am I supposed to be decreasing evenly for a whole round, and not just from where I joined the round to that first marker?
Yes, the instructions are (underlining the important parts:

“[FONT=Verdana, Trebuchet MS, Arial][SIZE=-1][COLOR=#333333]YOKE: On round 1 and 2 only, K2tog [1 st from body and 1 st from sleeve] at the 4 joints. 154 [160, 166, 174, 186] sts on needle.
Work 1” even.
Next row: Dec 28 [24, 24, 22, 24] sts evenly around to marker. 126 [136, 142, 152, 162] sts on needle.
[COLOR=Black]
The short rows are for the back of neck to raise it a little, and have nothing to do with the decreases. You could probably leave them out.[/COLOR]
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

8

See, the part that has me confused it that it says, “Dec 28 [24, 24, 22, 24] sts evenly around [B]to marker[/B]”

The place the pattern says to put the marker is 22 stitches after I move the stitches from the first sleeve onto the needle. That’s not all the way around from where I joined the yoke.

The marker is only 73 stitches from where I started knitting the yoke. Not the full 186 stitches around.

That’s what has me so confused.

Am I just supposed to disregard the join and work the pattern from that marker I placed 22 stitches after joining the first sleeve, and consider that my starting point from now on in the pattern?

9

Also, the marker isn’t where a sleeve was joined to the body. It’s 22 stitches frm a join…like the pattern says to do.
So it’s an odd place, for me, to start a round. :frowning:

10

That does seem to be what it’s saying. But it won’t hurt to move the marker to where the sleeve and body stitches are joined, I think. If you want to do the back neck shaping, that would be done on the center back stitches instead of following the instructions as written.