Hi all!
I am working on a child’s sweater and I’m wondering how to get the effect seen on the pattern photo. I can see that the neck ribbing is extremely stretched out and I would like to try to achieve that as well. How can I stretch the neckband without stretching everything else?
Attaching photo of my work as well as the reference photo.
You guys are always SO wonderful. Thanks in advance!
What materials are you using? If it’s acyrlic, you’re not going to see much difference after blocking. Did you use the needle suggested? Yours looks a little tighter than the image.
It looks like the sweater was knitted flat which changes the look of the neckline
The pattern seems to recommend a much smaller needle for the ribbing (sizes 4 and 7). It looks like you also have a tighter gauge on the rib. Did you go down several needle sizes to knit the rib?
Knitting with worsted weight yarn rather than 2 strands of fingering may also be contributing to the look of the rib. Have you tried stretching it out to see how far it will stretch?
The sweater looks lovely, nice and warm too. It may be that you need to reknit the rib at a looser gauge. Do you know if it will fit over the child’s head. That’s always the critical part of any child’s sweater.
If not it’s worth cutting the rib and reknitting from the sweater body up with a larger size needle. You can figure out which size on a swatch or go up 2-3 sizes from the needle you used.
This is my go-to method for cutting and reknitting. You may want to try it on a swatch with scrap yarn to be sure before you touch your beautiful work.
I’m using two strands of the KFO cotton merino, which is one of the recommended methods based on the pattern. I went up a full needle size for the body to meet the gauge and the ribbing is done in 1/2 size smaller needle!
It stretches out quite a bit but just bounces back after it’s done stretching.
Thanks for the comments and the sweater surgery resource!
Sounds like you’ve made all good choices. The cotton merino is lovely yarn. It’s 70% cotton so it may well stretch out especially with washing and blocking although that’s more of a guess rather than any experience.
I was thinking of hanging it on a hanger once it’s 50+ percent dry to really stretch the top. Does that seem reasonable?
It’s worth a try. Pining it out flat may be better since you can stretch the neck and not the rest of the sweater.
With a hanger wouldn’t that risk damaging the shoulders?
Is it fit or style that you want?
If it’s only fit then the rib which you have, stretches a lot but bounces back, could be big enough to get on and be comfortable, to check this measure both stretched (to get on) and unstretched (comfort after bounce back). You might decide it’s okay to leave it and learn from it that next time you gauge for a neck you either want a bigger needle or to add more stitches than the pattern requires to give a larger neckband with a finer rib, then decrease down to pattern stitch count as you change to body needle and raglan.
If it’s style you’re after (I like the pic with the wider neck it’s very pretty) then reknitting the rib is probably the way to go. I had a raglan i made for my son which ended up with a larger neckband like you want and he wouldn’t wear it as it was uncomfortable for him, he wanted a smaller neck, i was really surprised at how dramatically the size and fit could change by changing only the neckband and leaving all the raglan and body as it was.
I would be cautious with the surgery if you haven’t done it before. Make sure you don’t go into the raglan as (i think I’m right but could be wrong) i don’t think you can knit those raglans UP without causing a jog in the stitch pattern because they were worked down. The new rib will look good with a new needle.
Does the pattern have a schematic? You could look there to see what size the neck is intended to sit at. Then work a rib swatch to get that size.
I think it looks stretched out on the pattern photo because it IS stretched out by that type of hanger. I can see the stitches below the ribbing bowing out, indicating that the neck is stretched. It’s not going to look like that flat or on a body.
You might be able to achieve that look if you knit the ribbing loosely on a LARGER needle, then went to a smaller one afterwards.
