Another Baby Sweater

The purple 100% wool yarn I dyed at fall Fiber Day is the perfect type of yarn for making something on my newish LK-150 flatbed knitting machine. I aspire to make a sweater for myself, but there is not enough purple yarn for that. The yarn is not ideal for a baby sweater, but making another small sweater was good for practicing on the machine.

There are some You Tube videos and patterns for making an easy machine knit sweater. After making the crossover baby sweater, I understood the basics of what to do. Combining information from several sources, I came up with my own “pattern” (so much for just following a pattern). I knit a gauge swatch on the machine, and then using measurements from another pattern, I came up with how many stitches and rows were about right for the front and back, and the sleeves.

I knit a rectangle on the machine for the front, putting waste yarn on the stitches that would be joined to the back at the shoulder, and putting the middle stitches on waste yarn for the neck. It looked way too long! I could have been a dress instead of a sweater. I figured out how many rows long it should be instead, picked up the stitches with a long circular needle at that row, and then frogged out the rows above that. I hand knitted on waste yarn at the shoulders by hand, and put the neck stitches on waste yarn again.

After knitting the back the same size as the improved front, I joined the front and back at the shoulders. For the other baby sweater I did the join on the machine. This time I joined the shoulders using kitchener stitch by hand, the same way I do for finishing off the toes on my circular sock machine socks. It makes a perfect seamless join.

The sleeves in the other pattern were knit as two separate pieces, and then joined to the body at the side. This time I hung the side of the sweater on the machine and then machine knitted the sleeves directly on, with some decreases and then waste yarn at the cuff.

And voila the machine knitting part was done. The finishing to be done by hand included mattress stitching the side seams and sleeve seam, finishing off the cuffs of the sleeves, and finishing off the neck.

The other sweater I made had the lives stitches at the neck bound off with a back stitch bind off. This time I thought it would look nice to pick up the live stitches onto knitting needles, knit a few rows, and then bind off.

Notice there is a weird hole at the top of one sleeve seam at the shoulder. After getting to this point, I realized that the neck opening likely would not fit over my granddaughter’s head. A hat I knit her in about the same weight yarn had 72 stitches around. There are only about 50 stitches in the circumference of this neck, after adding two stitches at each side.

Around this time I happened to see a funny video on Instagram with actress Kristin Bell on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Apparently she is a knitter. She is talking about a sweater she knit where the neck turned out too small, and she could not get it over her head. Every knitter makes mistakes, even celebrities.

I was glad I figured out that the neck was going to be too small before getting any further. After thinking on this problem for a few days I came up with a plan to undo the stitches that made the shoulder join on one side, and then add those live stitches onto the neck. The opening would be bigger and I could put a button on the shoulder.

Undoing the shoulder kitchener stitches was not hard, but then the top of the sleeve was messed up. I kept looking at it trying to figure out how to get it be right. It turned out to be easy to rejoin about 3 shoulder stitches on the sleeve side, and then re knit the entire sleeve. The next photo shows the project with the shoulder stitches adjusted and ready to re-knit on the sleeve.

It did not take long at all to re hang the side of the sweater on the machine and knit on the sleeve over again.

Following is a photo with a couple of rows knitted at the neck, with two button holes and then bound off. I did a backstitch bind off at the end of one sleeve, but did not like it and later changed it. The waste yarn is still on at the cuff of the other sleeve in this photo.

Instead of back stitch bind off on the end of the sleeves, I put the stitches on knitting needles and did a normal bind off.

On our next visit to the Twin Cities, I tried the sweater on Nora. It fit perfectly! I do not think the yarn is machine washable, and it could be a bit scratchy. It looks cute, but probably won’t get much actual use.

After making two small sweaters on the knitting machine, I am feeling comfortable about tackling a sweater for myself. Meanwhile, I will be super busy with holiday preparations and activities, and getting ready for three months in Arizona.