Striped Sweater

How-to Questions
1

This is the pattern I am looking at attempting:

I have not yet attempted a sweater for grownups and this seems like a nice one to try. But I am nervous and was wondering if any of you experience knitters have some hints or suggestions for me while looking at this pattern?
Also, what is a yoke?
And it says to change color on non-increase rows but then knit for 2 rows with a CC but can you knit with your CC and increase then? because it says to increase every other row.
I would like to make this as a gift so the reciepent cannot try it on ahead of time, so how can I know when to stop increasing? or do you increase every other row until you reach your desired length?
Also, what kind of decrease is best for sleeeves? k2tog?
Thanks In Advance,
Phantm

2

The yoke is the part of the sweater from the neck to the underarms. This is where you do your increases. You increase on every other round until the sweater is long enough to easily be held together under the arms. At this point, you knit the body of the sweater down in a straight tube.

For the increases, you could increase on the solid round, then work a stripe round, and increase on the next stripe round. That should work.

For the sleeves. . If you knit them flat, you’d decrease at each end, so when you decrease in the round, you have to work 2 decreases on each decrease round. I’ve found that if you k1, k2tog, work to last 3 stitches, ssk, and k1, it makes a kind of fake ‘seam’–looks nice. You can also leave just one stitch between the decreases. I wouldn’t put them right next to each other, though, because that will leave some gaps.

3

About how often would you reccommend doing the decreases? and also, how will I know when to stop dec?

4

You don’t decrease, you start at the neck and increase. Usually there are 8 sts increased every other round, but sometimes it needs to be every 3rd round. You stop when you try on the piece and the ‘sleeve’ sts and front and back sts meet at the underarm. Not too tight, and not too loose.

5

Thanks Sue, but I was referring to the decreases that are recommended for the sleeves.

6

Check out the last paragraph. It tells how she decreased. A lot depends on your preference for how tight you want the sleeve to be.

7

Sorry, didn’t realize you meant the sleeves. I usually dec about every inch and theoretically, you would stop a few inches above the wrist, but it seems to work out that I dec all the way down to the cuff, usually because I use a larger gauge.