I can't finish anything! knit 2 together 2 times

#1

as previously posted i am at a pause with my bobbi bear due to technical difficulties.

i’m also trying to finish up this cardigan i made but the button band i’m supposed to pick up sts for has more than the pattern called for (even though i am positive i knit it correctly and all the seams lined up and it fits perfectly minus the button band) so, another impass

AND --so i’m helping my daughter translate a pattern in the (embarrassed here) “teen knitting club” book for a (seriously blushing) poncho! and we -both- keep screwing up the sts. so, if a pattern says “knit 2 together two times, pm, knit 2 together 2 times” in a row that originally had 46 sts on it --why am i ending up with 43? and why does the pattern say i should end up with 38 sts left???

oh thank god for this site!

#2

oh thank god for this site!

:smiley:

Hey, don’t worry about a few extra picked-up stitches for a button band. Just keep the buttonhole spacing above those extra stitches, and you won’t notice! Or, if it’s more than a few stitches, just distribute them between the buttonholes, so they’re still evenly spaced.

As far as your decrease goes, the part in quotes should give you 4 less stitches. Do they call for this series twice in the row? That would leave 38 stitches. K2tog is a single decrease, and in the quotes you are working it 4 times = 4 fewer stitches.

Hope that helps!
You’re so cute with all your blushing. :slight_smile: Hey, teen-knitting rocks! Yay ponchos! :smiley: :smiley:

#3

i am not going to worry anymore about the buttonband --it is only a few sts. i was debating picking them all up or not picking up some and determined the band might get wavy if i picked them all up -so, as you said (as usual!!!).

the other pattern is less clear. i know i was supposed to get 42 sts, funny that i didn’t and neither did emma but that is easy enough to remedy (sometimes i flake on the more basic patterns cause they get boring). but NO! it doesn’t say to do this twice and, in fact, the next row specifically says something like “wrong side row: purl all sts”.

gaw. annoyed with poorly written patterns. especially in a knitting book geared for the younger/newbie sect.

#4

Is the poncho piece supposed to look symetrical? Maybe you’re supposed to do it on the end of the row as well as the beginning? Where exactly are you in the pattern? Maybe if you tell us the whole line, we can help you. If it’s the pattern’s fault and it’s wrong, that’s really too bad. You might also try a search for the book title and “errata.” (That’s the word, isn’t it?) I’ve seen website’s with errata listed for a book.

#5

oh, sorry. i didn’t notice that you had reponded. it is supposed to be symetrical, and it is in center of the pattern. i’m just giving the important info, so as not to infringe on any rights or anything, but this is basically what it says:

~co 46 sts
~a few rows in garter st
~p a row
~st st for 6 rows
~on the next knit row, begin decreasing as follows: rs row: knit 19 sts, then knit 2 tog 2 times. pm. knit 2 sts together 2 times. end row by knitting 19 sts. “you’ll have 38 sts left”. ws row: purl all sts.
next it just says:
~work 7 more rows even ~do the same decrease job again and repeat this kind of thing till there are 22 sts left. it doesn’t say how many total rows this’ll take.

thanks. i appreciate you helping me trouble shoot. emma is so disappointed in me -“have you fixed my poncho yet?” i distracted her by setting her up on a latchhook kit. these crafty kids --they’re as bad as all of us!

#6

I can picture it. The marker you’re passing is the dead center of the poncho point. So you’re decreasing on either side of that marker on your decrease rows; apparently, two stitches on each side of that marker.
If you’re not knitting in the round, then purling the next row makes sense in order to give the stockinette stich effect on the right side of the work.
It sounds okay to me.

#7

Thanks for responding Yvonne. I’ve been really busy this weekend, and my brain wasn’t up for the task. I hope this answers your question Amigarabita!

Amy

#8

thanks yvonne, but the prob i was having was that the pattern was telling me i was going to have fewer sts than possible from simply decreasing 4 sts. the reason i brought up the next row was to show that it didn’t call for more decreasing in that row. just said to purl.

its just a poncho. i can still make one. i was just trying to see what i might have been missing in the pattern.

thanks for all your help.

#9

I didn’t know if you were still having problems, but I found something interesting

on the next knit row, begin decreasing as follows: rs row: knit 19 sts, then knit 2 tog 2 times. pm. knit 2 sts together 2 times. end row by knitting 19 sts. “you’ll have 38 sts left”. ws row: purl all sts.

Lets infuse some math. 19+19=38 so there would be no way you would end up with 38 sts left if you have k2tog in there.
Um all I would know is that this would be a missprint, amazon says there is an eratta sheet, but I don’t know where you could find it.

#10

thanks -i needed someone to tell me that i’m not crazy. it really sucked though, cause it was the first pattern my daughter tried to do from her teen knitting club book.