WIP: short rows will "even out" your buttonbands

What'cha Knittin'?
1

As some of you already know, I use ‘short rows’ to even out the height of built-in buttonbands that lay right next to the st st of the Front.

Case in point: Say you want to knit-in the buttonbands as you go along.
The buttonbands can be garter stitch, or perhaps seed stitch. (Not ribbing)

But, as you knit along…you will notice that the buttonband starts to warp, or bow/bend! Curses! :wall:

This bow/bend is due to the fact that the seed stitch or garter stitch ROW GAUGE doesn’t match the row gauge of the body.
It isn’t ‘stacking up’ as tall as the st st.

To remedy this, you must increase the number of rows within the button band without increasing the rows of the body.

This is accomplished with the use of ‘short rows’.

I am making my DGD a ruffle edge cardi, worked in one piece up to the armhole shaping. Here is it so far: Another inch and I will be separating the FRONTS and BACK and working them separately.

Note the seed stitch buttonband below. There are 33 rows of seed stitch so far…and I worked 5 short rows in this buttonband. That is to say, while the body has 33 exact rows of st st above the ruffle & eyelet border, there are 38 seed stitch rows! On Rows 5, 11, 17, 23, and 29 I worked short rows before proceeding down the line.

Here is an example:
[B]RS [/B]Row 5: work the 6 seed stitches/turn the work/[B]WS[/B]: work the 6 seed stitches again/turn the work/[B]RS[/B]: work the 6 seed stitches again and continue on with the st st as usual. This creates an additional ‘stack’ of seed stitch on “Row 5”.

I was wrapping and turning, but I quit that for the Row 11. It was just too darn hard to fully pick up the wrap and make it disappear. So I just turned the work, and worked the next stitch, no wraps. It worked! No holes.

PS: I will continue to work short rows in the buttonband every 6th row. This cardi will have ONE BUTTONHOLE, in the neckband, so there will be no short row conflicts with buttonhole rows.

PPS: I do know that some folks will try to ‘block away’ their buttonband blues! But, some yarns will bounce right back to their original shape. I’d rather do it right in the first place. The less you rely on blocking to fix your problems, the better.

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That’s awesome. Thanks! I need to print out all your tutorial posts and just make a little book for reference. I find I’m always going back and looking for them again.

Thank you so much for sharing all your knitting knowledge with us!

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Oh my is this timely! I’m making a sweater with garter stitch band (no buttons) and I was wondering if I should do this. I remember you talking about it before (with ribbing?) and was thinking about asking you!

However… eek…I’ve already done about 4 inches and so far it looks okay. Is it tool ate to do this and how often should I do it? Will it still be effective if I start now? :think:

BTW… I did do this on the corners of a shawl I’m making so it wouldn’t curl so much and it worked pretty well! Know I know to continue it all the way every 6 rows or so. :thumbsup:

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I am madly in lovewith the color of this one!

Great advice, I wouldn’t have ever thought of that!

Your picture quality is really good too. I love when it seems like you can really get a feel for the yarn ykwim?

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No, Jan, not too late. Don’t frog anything. I’d work the short rows every 4th row 3 times, then stretch it out to every 6th row.

I totally forgot the short rows for this sweater (below) until I was about 1/2 way up, and the seed st buttonband was already warping/bowing. But the short rows that I was able to work in by the end of the buttonband remedied the warp.

I already KNEW ‘garter stitch built-in’ buttonbands need short rows from my Purple Malabrigo Bed Jacket last year…but didn’t realize that seed stitch would also need short rows. The purple bed jacket is what you were thinking about, I’m pretty sure, cuz I wrote about it in the FO Post.

For the Malabrigo bed jacket:  I worked the LEFT FRONT twice!  The photo is self-explanatory!  The first attempt is #1.  The second (successful) attempt is #2. Yes, I took photos cuz I wanted to share the tip!

I didn't frog the first attempt and roll it into a big huge ball.  [I]After I was sure that the 're-do' was gonna be successful,[/I] then I knit the RIGHT FRONT by pulling the yarn from the botched LEFT FRONT as I knit.  Essentially, you skip the step of frogging and rolling into a gigantic ball!  Less stress on the delicate yarn.  
[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2415/1954923191_eb41d1539c.jpg?v=0[/IMG]

[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2096/2036586956_b429027dcd.jpg[/IMG]
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Oh! Good to know!!

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Oh good! I am knitting a top down cardigan so I did one short row on both sides and marked it and will continue to add some as I go down the sweater. :thumbsup:

Thank you so much! You’re a great teacher!

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oh my, this is beautiful knitting. It also sounds to me to be very advanced knitting. I hope one day to be able to understand what you’re talking about, and maybe attempt something lovely like you do. Meanwhile, I’m sure you could be featured in some very specialty yarn magazines!

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thank you so much for this valuable tip!
while you’re at it, Dolyce, can you tell us your favorite method for producing the buttonhole itself? mine don’t look “firm”. they sag a bit on one side, or have a lagging bit of yarn through them, causing confusion on where, exactly, the buttonhole is.

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Hi Moni~

I just work buttonholes in these seed stitch buttonbands over 6 st as follows: Right side facing> seed 2, seed 1, bind off, seed 1, bind off, seed 2. Wrong side facing> seed 2, cast on 2, seed 2. Next row: seed all the way across the row.

This is a very basic buttonhole, works good for seed stitch. But I take ever so much care to work the buttonhole bindoffs and the buttonhole cast on stitches with[U] just the tips[/U] of my needles. KP OPTIONS work best. I’m real careful to keep the stitches [U]as teeny as possible[/U]. If it turns out a wreck, I re-do them! Horrid buttonholes are so ‘visible’ unless the cardi is buttoned up!

Other yarns and buttonband styles call for other kinds of buttonhole methods. But I like the one I described well enough. It’s all in HOW you do it, not WHAT you do.

There is a GREAT BOOK called “Seven Things that can Make or Break a Sweater” by Margaret E. Fisher.

Also available at KnitPicks!

I highly recommend this book. I learned a lot from it. She is a genious, and her book is USER FRIENDLY!

Here are the SEVEN THINGS:

  1. Cast-on Edge
  2. Increasing in Ribbing
  3. Slanting Decreases
  4. Invisible Increases
  5. Blocking
  6. Picking up Stitches for Bands
  7. [B]Buttonholes[/B]

So, we can knit really nice sweater, but if we botch one of these things, the sweater will suffer in quality.

Margaret E. Fisher is a TKGA Master Knitter, nationally know knitting instructor, and skilled designer. This is her first book.

I like her down-to-earth, no nonsense approach.
She is a GOOD TEACHER, and the diagrams and photos are excellent!

PLUS, there are SEVEN PATTERNS in the book! Said patterns will be referred to in the SEVEN THINGS chapters! So you will immediately be able to USE A TECHNIQUE in a real live project!

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I love, love, [I]love [/I]your tips! You explain things so well, and you always have wonderful, clear pictures that illustrate your point perfectly. Thanks!!

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OMGGGGGggg 1 more chef d’oeuvre from u … u r so rapid n i am still struggling with 1 jacket for my son since 1 mth…Thnks for the advice about the buttonbands …i will try it

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:thumbsup:Thank you for the tips! That is going to be so pretty I love the color!

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[color=#300090]Now that I’ve read your ‘using short rows in the button band’ I am wondering if I should try something similar?

I was impatient to use a new pair of size 3 KP fixed circulars so I started a free form dishcloth with garder stitch in the center and planned on having a seed stitch border around on all 4 sides. Is there a difference in row gauge between the garder and seed stitches?[/color]

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I don’t think you will have any problem!

The problem with the buttonbands and garter stitch next to st st is that there are SO MANY ROWS that are of uneven height stacking up against one another from hemline to neckline!

Go ahead and make your dishcloth as per normal!

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There is a GREAT BOOK called “Seven Things that can Make or Break a Sweater” by Margaret E. Fisher.

I just took a class at Stitches South in Atlanta with Margaret (he, he, notice the first name basis) The class I took was called “A Sampling of Stitches” and she was WONDERFUL … now I wish I had taken the sweater class, too. I did get the book and I am going to use it as a reference making “Carnival Top” on the cover of Knit n Style.

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:waah: I just finished the Heirloom Cabled Raglan Baby Sweater from the latest Interweave magazine and that would have helped so much. I will remember this for the next one. Bless you!!!

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I was making a “falling water” scarf recently and realized that the garter stitch band was a tighter gauge than than pattern stitch. I immediately thought of this post and applied your technique. Saved my scarf! Thank you!

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You made my day, Moni!!! :cheering: