how to shape for round shoulders with short rows

Hi,
I am knitting a sweater for my brother who has round shoulders (almost a dowager’s hump) and I want to add extra fabric to the back using short rows (see pic of sweater back so far). The back is 91 stitches from armhole to armhole and calls for 10 inches of rows of 91 stitches before beginning to shape the shoulders with bind-offs. I want to add about 2 inches of extra fabric to the upper back without changing the row size of 91 stitches (see diagram).

I am new to short rows and may not understand exactly what’s going on, but if I add a short row dart that tapers to the top (see diagram), won’t I end up with fewer than 91 stitches when I get to the shoulder shaping? How can I add fabric rows without changing the stitch count? Thanks.
Zaffer!
sweater back
sweater shaping
short row dart

Hello
Although I wouldn’t be able to tell you how much extra fabric your short rows will give you, I can say that you will maintain the stitch count. If you follow the arrows on your diagram the centre stitches are worked more rows than the outer stitches but at the last 2 rows all the stitches are reincorporated into the row, first along the right of the diagram, then the left. So all 91 will be on the needle and fitting within in the shoulder to shoulder measurement.

Maybe try your short rows on a small sample so you can see what happens?
If you already have a stocking stitch swatch you could make your short short rows sample with the same stitch count and this would make it easy to compare the two, how the estramfabric forms and the stitchncount at the beginning and end rows and the width of the swatch. That’s what I would do as I find it so useful to have swatches for new techniques.

I hope this helps

It is lovely you are taking such care to custom fit the sweater for your brother this is so caring and a real benefit of hand knit pieces. I’m impressed.

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It looks like you’ve got it figured out. If I could do the preliminary work like that I would. I just go for it based on what I’ve done before that worked. I agree with @Creations that your overall stitch count for the row won’t change because of the short rows. My stitch counts will change when they shouldn’t because I make dumb mistakes but not because of short rows.

Thanks so much Creations and GrumpyGamma. Thanks for clarifying how short rows work. I’ll take your advice and try it on a sample first.

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You’re welcome. Short rows are scary until you get used to using them. You’ll get this! I expect you’ll be satisfied with the results.

You’re welcome.
Your diagram shows 8 rows of short rows with the 9th row being a full row. Based on your row gauge (either of a swatch you’ve already made with notes about stitch and row gauge, or based on the gauge of the fabric you have already knit for the back) you should be able to work out how many extra inches these 8 rows add to the modified section. From this you can judge if you will have enough short rows or need to do more than the diagram shows. Using your row gauge you can also work out how many rows you have available (the 10 inches from here to the shoulder bind offs) within which to work your extra fabric of short rows.
You may have already done this as it looks like you have planned this out thoroughly, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.

Let us know how it goes.

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