Sweater sleeves and sewing seams

How-to Questions
1

Hi!
I have 3 quick questions about sewing a sweater - I am new to this so I hope they make sense.

  1. THe pattern says to pick up and knit 58 to make the sleeve, but there are more stitches along the edge than 58…do I simply skip over some stitches to get to 58 or do I knit 2tog a few times to get to 58? Does this make sense??

  2. How do you sew seams for the sleeves for stockinette stitch? I am sewing on the purl side of the sweater…I can’t find instructions for this online…

  3. How do I start the sewing for the seams with a new piece of yarn?

Hope this isn’t too many questions…
I appreciate any help I can get as I would love to finish this sweater for my daughter by thanksgiving!!!

Thank you!

2

  1. When you pick up stitches for the sleeve, skip stitches evenly around. The reason this happens is that the length of a stitch is different than the width, so you have to compensate by picking up fewer stitches.

  2. The very best, nearly invisible seam for stockinette is the mattress stitch. If your knit side is the right side, it’s done with the right side facing. Amy had video on it in the finishing section. It’s wonderful.

If the sleeve is in reverse stockinette–the purl side being the right side, you can still do mattress, picking up the lower part of the purl on one edge and the upper part on the other edge.

  1. When I seam sleeves, I always start at the cuff so I know for sure that they’re lined up. If something goes awry, any messiness will be in the armpit–not a biggy.

I go up on one edge and down through the other, and up through the first one again, leaving a tail, which is woven in later. Then I start my mattress and marvel at what a nice seam it makes.:teehee:

3

Thank you so much for your help! I do have one follow-up question:

I am about to start sewing my sleeves with a new piece of yarn…do I just start sewing in the yarn or do I have to make a knot or something?

4

Don’t make a knot, even if it seems loose by just starting straight off seaming, you can tighten that and weave in the end later, just like you’d weave in any other loose end.

5

The usual method for picking up sts along an edge is pick up 3 out of every 4 sts. Or 2 out of 3 works too.

6

[COLOR=red]Ingrid said … I go up on one edge and down through the other, and up through the first one again, leaving a tail, which is woven in later. Then I start my mattress and marvel at what a nice seam it makes.:teehee:[/COLOR]

I have been making easy fingerless mittens, the kind that you knit flat then sew the seam leaving a thumb hole. I have had such a time getting the first cuff stitches and the top rib stitches to not have a little jog in them … it has been pretty much hit or miss. I am [SIZE=4][COLOR=magenta][B]SO[/B][/COLOR][/SIZE] going to start doing this … thanks Ingrid

7

Very quick question : can you mattress stitch a raglan sleeve to a raglan shoulder? The decreasing edge is confusing me - where do I start to thread the yarn?

8

Yes! The first time I used mattress stitch was on a raglan sweater and I was so happy to learn it.

Pick up a stitch on the sleeve and the bars of the first full stitch on the body edge. Attach the sleeves to the body with yarn, or pins, or clips every few inches so you can keep things even.

9

Thank you!

10

I have a similar question. I have knitted my sleeves flat but joined them to the body of the sweater when I reached under the armpits of the body section and did a raglan decrease (so I knit the yoke as one big piece: body and 2 sleeves). So, when I’m sewing up the seams of the sleeves from cuff up, what do I do when I get to under the arms when I reach the armpits? There are 4 BO sts at each armpit that I don’t really know what to do with. I will obviously join the raglan seams under the arm and then what? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!