Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere and I couldn’t find it. I’m attempting a simple baby cardigan pattern that has instructions like “When work meas 17 cm after garter st, shape
armholes. On each edge, cast off 4 sts once.”, and similar phrasings for the neck shaping etc.
I’m almost certainly being an idiot, but should I read this to mean “…shape armholes. In order to do this, on each edge cast off 4 sts once.”?
Or is it two separate instructions, ie “Firstly, shape armholes. After you’ve shaped the armholes, cast off 4sts on each edge”. In which case, is there a technique for shaping armholes that I’m missing somewhere?
I suspect it’s the first, and that casting off 4sts is the instruction for how to shape the armholes, but hopefully you can see why I’d like some clarification because of how it’s split into two sentences like that Feel free to laugh at my incompetence here! Haha
You’re correct. It’s the first. (It’s kind of read like the cast off stuff would be a bullet point under the first sentence explaining further what it means. And is a fairly standard way to write it so you’ll see it a lot if you do other projects.)
Work through the pattern. Follow it exactly as written. You will understand it. Just remember to reverse the shapings. For one you will bind off or decrease in the left edge, for the other half of the front, it will be in the right. Otherwise, you will end up with two left sides or two right sides of a sweater. I don’t know how many times I have knit the most beautiful pairs of mittens with two left thumbs because I forgot to reverse them! You live and you learn!
Feel free to laugh at my incompetence here! Haha