Posted on 15 Comments

The yoke’s on me

Lion Neck Cardigan in Progress

So, I’ve been plugging away at that sweater for about a week now, doing a few rows here and there after supper and before bed.  This image shows where I was three days ago.  Today I finished the yoke.  I’m already much further along than I ever thought I would be on knitting my own sweater.  I guess this should be my proof to never say never, eh?

I’m making the Lion Neck Cardigan from Custom Knits.  It’s a top-down raglan construction, which is knit-speak for “least scary kind of sweater for a newbie,” and so far the pain has been minimal.  There was the casting on (easy), then the first increase row (easy), then the second increase row (easy) repeated a bunch of times (boring-ish, but easy).

10-365

Lion Neck Cardigan in progress Lion Neck Cardigan in progress

And that’s all there was to the yoke.  I counted the stitches at the end just to make sure that I had done all of the increasing correctly:

  • 22 stitches front left.  Check.
  • 22 stitches front right. Check.
  • 46 stitches left sleeve. Check.
  • 46 stitches right sleeve. Check.
  • 58 stitches across the back.  Crap.

I have 72.  14 extra stitches.  Like, five inches of extra width.  Crap.

You know, I think I’m just going to keep on with this,  extra inches and all.  After another few rows of knitting, I should have sleeve holes and be able to try it on to evaluate the damages.  Maybe it will be ok?  Maybe I was making a size too small to begin with and this will make it all better?  Probably wishful thinking, but what the heck.

The math geek in me is curious how I ended up with an extra 14 stitches… I’m off to curl up with the pattern and calculate where I went wrong.  And then I’m going to cross my fingers and keep on knitting.  Ever the optimist, apparently.

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Posted on 15 Comments

15 thoughts on “The yoke’s on me

  1. This looks great!! Im having a Yarn Swap on my blog. Come check it out and tell your readers about it. The more the better! 😀

    1. Sounds like fun – good luck with it!

  2. I knew you could do it! Once you get hooked on knitting you can’t stop. Hubs and I went to a concert last night and a lady I knew was knitting while waiting for the show to start. Happened at another concert a few weeks ago, too. I’d better start remembering my knitting, too!
    .-= See Marty’s latest blog post: The Escape Artist =-.

    1. It’s funny how you start wanting to fill every idle moment with knitting once you start. On the days I decide to pick up the kids from school, I always knit in the pickup line. Pre-concert sounds like a good opportunity, too. I actually worked on a small project once at a movie – some yawn-fest my sister and I brought our kids to see, LOL!

  3. Oh wow, that is the best way to knit a sweater! You can always decrease back down in a little bit and have added a design feature. I can’t remember what the final looks like but if it doesn’t button you could add a button (!!!) there where it will now overlap. Do you understand what I’m saying?

    1. Yes, I do. The finished sweater isn’t really supposed to overlap, but I’ll be fine with it, if it does. It’s got me thinking about a shawl pin closure that I could make myself from polymer clay.

      I’ve since knit the armholes, plus another 3 inches or so, and it definitely doesn’t look too big for me. So yay!

  4. Oh it’s going to be great. You will probably find that once you have made one sweater you will want more because there is nothing so great as wearing a sweater you knit. As far as the extra stitches wait and see you may be ok and this way you should be able to wear something under the sweater without feeling to confining. PLUS if it really bugs you, you can also pull it back out.yikes scary I know but I had to pull a whole sleeve out once and do it over but in the end it was all good. Can’t wait to see how it looks all done and the yarn is fantastic.
    .-= See Janey’s latest blog post: Happy Friday =-.

    1. I think it will be ok with the the extra stitches – I like things roomy. Anyway, so far so good.

      And I can definitely see sweater-making become an addiction. I wish I could afford to splurge on nice yarn like this more often!

  5. hmm, it is weird that all of your extra stitches are in on section only, now I’m curious too! you could always just start throwing in decreases here and there to get it back down to size, but it may cause a slight poof in the back.

    it sucks to rip back, but it will suck more if you rip back EVEN MORE work, you know? try going back to your LYS to see if they can identify the problem now, while there’s not too terribly much to rip out.

    OH- and I checked the errata to be sure- it’s a good habit to get into because sometimes it’s a misprint, and not your knitting. There is only one slight error and one part that is confusing, so you might want to check it out before you keep going: http://www.knitandtonic.net/knitandtonic/custom-knits-errata-and-u.html. It’s always a good idea to check before you start a project (I don’t. But I’m just saying–one woman came in after repeating an 11 row pattern only to find out she was only to have knit 1 row- not 11. AAAAH!)

    Good luck, I know you can do it!

    1. Thanks, Linda 🙂

      I actually figured out what I did wrong. On the first increase row, I increased all of the stitches between the second and third markers, instead of just the first and the last.

      I knit a few more rows, until I had real armholes, tried it on, and I think it will be fine as-is.

      I’m with you on the errata – I didn’t read it when I first started, but I did read it yesterday when I was hoping that I’d done it right and that the book was wrong 😀

      I’m going to keep plugging away at it. It seems to be just fine with the extra stitches (which is making me think maybe I need to re-check my gauge…0

      1. ah, that makes sense! i figured it was either that or a miscount at the very beginning. i think it will be okay as long as it’s not throwing the armholes off or anything. 🙂 the ruffles will hide all!

        1. Exactly! More and more I think ruffles were a smart design choice, first time around 😀

  6. ok. from the picture it looks just fine. perfect fitting yoke. 🙂 I emailed you a blog plug in question too. didn’t want to bore anyone else with http’s and such.Thanks!
    .-= See becky’s latest undefined post: If you register your site for free at =-.

  7. I don’t know if this is the exact sweater, but it has the same name,check out the Feb 6, 2009 entry. http://craftywench.typepad.com/knittingwench/

    1. Yes! And what’s funny is that I just noticed I saw that post and commented on it almost a year ago. When I saw this pattern in the book, I never realized that I’d seen it before and liked it so much. Small world 🙂

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