Knitting top down cardi, can't keep it in broken rib!

How-to Questions
1

hello–I am a fairly new knitter. I am trying to knit my husband a top-down cardigan (v neck) in broken rib. it is magical how the shoulders, back and front shape up!! but i cannot seem to keep the broken rib pattern. no matter what I try the ribs start to go diagonal verses the lining up straight down.

the pattern has you increasing before and after markers every other row, and on every 4th row you are increasing one stitch on the fronts. you are supposed to knit into front and back of the stitch to increase, but I have been doing m1s instead like the video by Elizabeth Zimmerman. between the markers there is always an even # of stitches, but the fronts sometimes have an odd # and sometimes even (though the total number of stitches all around is always even). in my own attempts to fix this, when the front stitches are an even number I tried started with a k, when odd I started with a p. This kept some of the sections in pattern, but one front and shoulder are still heading diagonal! i have ripped this out and started over 6 times trying to figure this out! please help!!

2

Look at the previous rows. On the k p rib rows, work the next st the same as it was 2 rows before. Then you don’t need to tear your hair out at whether there’s odd or even numbers in a section.

3

that sounds simple! i have a bit of a hard time “seeing” the pattern until it is more established.

do you think just doing 2 m1s in a row and then “whatever comes next” is going to look nice–hope that makes sense–i am planning to pick up and knit a band all around at the end, probably k1p1 rib (?) so hopefully that edge will look good. i am trying to adapt a pattern in a book of top down sweaters because i never found just what i wanted, but i am totally new at this!

4

Well, ‘whatever comes’ next works if it’s the same st as the one that’s 2 rows down. But try a round like that and see how it comes out.

5

thank you, hopefully can try it out tonight