Facing the Sleeves – Part II

Ok, this is not exactly the day after I posted Part I. More like the next week. I really wanted to get the paloozas completed and I am unwilling to drag the Kauni on the train.

Kauni

You remember where we were? Picking up the stitches from the separately knit facing. Then knitting around in pattern.

Before you get carried away with the pattern, and the wonderful feeling of going around and around much faster than on the body, look at the width of your steek and compare it to the 8 rows of your facing. If it is narrower, you are fine. If it is wider, I would really recommend running another row of stitching and trim it back. You also want to be doing the bind off on a solid colour row. Not that you could not manage both the binding together plus the colour work, but why make your life harder?

Undo your provisional cast on, and place the live facing stitches onto a cable needle. Count how many you have on both the facing and the sleeve. The numbers are unlikely to be the same, since you have already decreased once or twice on the sleeve. This means you are going to have to decrease the facing stitches to make it come out even and lie flat. If there are only four more on the facing, I would recommend placing them in the underarm area, with the decreases in the same location as you did on the sleeve. For any number above four, the best is to spread the extras evenly around the sleeve.

The extra “stuff” you see is the backing paper I used to stabilize the end when I stitched it. The sleeve from the outside looks like this – facing on the inside, the steeked edge between and pattern to the outside.

Now comes the tedious but important part. You have counted the stitches. Starting in the center of the underarm, make the sandwich of steek edge between the facing and the sleeve

and knit the two layers together by taking the first stitch from the sleeve, and knitting it together with the first stitch on the facing. Repeat with the second stitch off of each needle, etc. I use an extra needle, but you could use the sleeve needle.

Progressing around the sleeve. I found it easier to move the stitch from the front needle to the back, then knit the two stitches together. For the decrease stitches, I just knit the three stitches together as one.

When this row is complete, the inside now looks like this – no sign of the steek edge at all, and stockinette facing showing on the inside.

Now – just continue on down the sleeve, per the pattern (in the English version there is an error – that second set of numbers is sleeve length with the third set of numbers being the final number of stitches).

And happily knit away.