Facing the Sleeves – Part 1

What a day, complete with early morning migraine, physical torture (ok, therapy), nothing worth while in the mail room and my work email overflowing.

Now that you have heard my whine, I will quit, leaving off the part about the electrical system going flooey in the van this evening. Nothing like discovering you have no headlights. This, of course was recognized after I was on my way to pick up the DH from the Bahnhof at 2230…

Kauni

Facing the sleeves. One at a time, in this case. – Part 1.

First, decide if you care about the direction of your colour changes. If you do, you need to switch and knit from the outside of the ball rather than the center. Or, you can rewind your yarn if you have a lot of energy. Otherwise, if you continue to knit in the same direction as before – your colours on the sleeve will be in upside down order from the body.

Second – facings. I really do not like raw edges. I like them covered up. The easiest way to do this is knit a facing that encloses the cut edge between it and the body. Other option would be to line the sweater, with the steek edges hidden by the lining.

a) Step one – provisionally cast on either the total number of stitches in the sleeve and then knit a number of rounds. If you don’t want to fuss with the underarm (and don’t mind tacking down an edge or two) provisionally cast on the number of sleeve stitches excluding the underarm stitches. In this case you will knit back and forth for the number of rows needed

b) determine the number of rows you need by the width of your steek, your row gauge and the pattern. You will want to close the facing at a time when both colours are the same. This means no rows with two colours.

c) the last row of your facing needs to be the same colour as the main one in your first set of blocks (trust me on this) And which colour in particular is determined by the colour of the stitches on hold.

Have I lost you yet?

Perhaps pictures will help – first a crocheted provisional cast on, followed by nine rows of grey (because my underarm stitches are grey)

provisinalcaston.jpg

Next I picked up the underarm stitches on a spare needle

underarmstitches.jpg

The facing and underarm stitches knit together (see why I wanted the colours to match?) with the result that there are now 12 stitches total where there were 12 on the facing and 12 under the arm on hold. The most complicated portion of this is making sure that you are holding the facing so that when you are done, the stockinette side faces the inside of the sweater.

togetherknitting.jpg

Now – to complete the fun – I am picking up the facing stitches with a crochet hook, one at a time, pulling through to the front and putting them on a spare needle. You can see the facing on the inside of the sweater, purl side facing me and the silver circular needle at the bottom of the facing.

pickingupfacing.jpg

Tomorrow, I will show you the entire facing picked up, rows of pattern knit and the facing closed. I would do it tonight, but I am too tired.

Sockapalooza4

Especially Marit – thanks for the suggestions. After playing a while with graph paper I have come up with an interesting way to pattern the heel that staggers the hearts. To differentiate between left and right, I am going to use the direction of the cable crosses. It means a little bit more concentration at this point. But I did have enough sense to put the set up row on the wrong side. All the cabling is now on the “knit” row.

Arches

More than enough fancy work it would seem. Recognize the building?

minerettearch.jpg

Shabbat Shalom

-Holly

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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