Pattern help please :)

How-to Questions
1

Hi everyone!

I’m knitting a baby sweater/jacket and I have gotten to the arms, but the pattern is confusing me. Here is the first step of the arms:

“Transfer held sts to dpns, dividing sts on the needles evenly. Pick up 2 sts on each side of armhole, place marker in center of these sts. Join yarn, knit and join in the round at armpit.
You now have 29 (31, 32, 35, 37, 37) sts.
Knit in the round in stockinette st until sleeve length is 1.5 inches or 4cm from underarm, then work the following decrease round:
Slm, k2tog, k until 2 sts remain before m, ssk.”

So I’ve transferred the (28) stitches to dpns. I know how to knit in round and decrease when the time comes. I don’t understand the pick up 2 stitches on each side of the armhole.

First of all, why pick up stitches instead of increase stitches (like kfb)? Second, how do I pick up stitches when I’m not on an edge? Third, by each side of the armhole do they mean the front and back or the top and the bottom or something else entirely?

Thanks is much for your help!!

2

Welcome to the forum!
You should pick up the sts at the lower part of the armhole (the underarm). The easiest way to do this is to pick up 2sts on one side of the underarm with your new strand of yarn, knit along your dpns to the other side of the underarm, pick up 2 sts here, place a marker and then join to knit in the round. You’ll have 4 new sts which will fill in the gap at the underarm. Increasing sts won’t fill that gap.

3

Thanks for the welcome and the clarity! :slight_smile:

One final question: picking up all four stitches right next to each other in the armpit won’t create an issue when I start decreasing at those stitches like the pattern says?

4

Nope, it won’t be a problem. Is this a raglan? Here’s a video.
picking up the sleeves on a raglan sweater