Pattern question..."at the same time..."

How-to Questions
1

Okay, I’m confused. I want to try and make a “regular” sweater (the only one I’ve done is the Elizabeth Zimmerman “surprise” sweater, and that one was knit all in one piece), so I picked one (the manly sweater) out of the Stitch 'n Bitch book. However, I don’t understand part of the pattern instructions. Here’s what it says:

[COLOR=“DarkGreen”]Back:

With MC and larger needles, CO 109 sts.

Set-up row: K3, p1, *k5, p1; rep from * to last 3 sts, k3.
Work in k5, p1 rib as set for 17". [B]At the same time,[/B] work 9" in MC, end with a WS row, then work color pattern.

With MC, work 1 row even.[/COLOR]

Okay…so…what in the world does it mean when it says “At the same time,” and what does “work 1 row even” mean?

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

Work 1 row even means to do a row in pattern without any changes to it, decs, incs or color. At the same time means to pay attention to 2 things going on. In this case, you’re going to be working in the rib for 17" but when you’ve done 9" you evidently change the colors.

3

You are a genius! That makes total sense to me now. Thank you so much! I am sure I will be back with more questions.

One more thing: would the “one row even” in this case be just k5, p1 rib all the way across?

Thanks again! :smiley:

4

Right, just work that row in wherever you are in the pattern.

5

I am also doing this sweater and have a question:

I’m having some trouble with the armhole shaping of the very manly sweater.
I’m doing the medium, so I have 109 stitches on my needle.
The directions are “BO 4 sts at beg of next 2 rows. Dec 1 st each side of next row, then every other row 3 times for total of 95 sts.”

My problem is that when I do this, I have a total of 96 sts at the end. Can anyone help??

Here’s what I’m doing specifically:

Row1: BO 4, knit in pattern (105 sts)
Row2: BO 4, purl in pattern (101 sts)
Row3: BO1, knit in pattern BO1 more at end (99 sts)
Row4: purl in pattern
Row5: BO 1, knit in pattern (98 sts)
Row6: purl in pattern
Row7: BO 1, knit in pattern (97 sts)
Row8: purl in pattern
Row9: BO 1, knit in pattern (96 sts)

6

I may have figured it out, after reading everything on this sweater on several different websites!
I think this is what I’m supposed to do:

Row1: BO 4, knit in pattern (105 sts)
Row2: BO 4, purl in pattern (101 sts)
Row3: BO1, knit in pattern BO1 more at end (99 sts)
Row4: purl in pattern
Row5: BO 1, knit in pattern BO1 more at end (97 sts)
Row6: purl in pattern
Row7: BO 1, knit in pattern BO1 more at end (95 sts)

If anyone would confirm, that would be lovely! Otherwise, here I go!

7

You did row 3 fine, but rows 5, 7 and 9 you’re only decreasing 1 st on each row, not 2. You don’t have to BO, do a ssk at the beginning of the rows and k2tog at the ends. And yes, that would only give you 93 sts for the rows you show there, but I think maybe the pattern means to dec 2 sts for 3 rows total, so row 7 would be your last dec row.

8

Since sue posted at the same time you did, and responded to your previous post, I thought I’d jump in and say YES, I believe you have it right now! As sue said, though, you don’t need to bind off on rows 3, 5 & 7, rather do ssk at the beginning and k2tog at the end.

9

Yep, that would do it!