We’re delighted to be hosting our very own Rosemont Cardigan Knit-A-Long on the Kelbourne Woolens Blog. The Rosemont Cardigan by Hannah Fettig, features Terra in Nettle, and is a great way to stay warm during the last few months of winter.
I have a small confession to make: I haven’t finished knitting the sleeves of my Rosemont. I was side tracked with knitting deadlines and out of town visitors, and, unfortunately, my beautiful Rosemont Cardigan took a backseat. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not excited by what’s next for my Rosemont. Let’s take a look at picking up our shawl collar stitches and short row shaping, shall we?
When approaching a picked-up collar, some knitters will look at their sweater edge and think, “So I pick up all of the stitches along the edge and that’s it, right?” Wrong! Well, kind of. In some cases, picking up every single stitch along the edge will create a nice and flat edge, but for most cases it can cause puckering. Can you guess why? That’s right, our good friend Gauge!
Remember how our stitch and row gauge were different? Since fewer stitches that rows fit into one inch, if you pick up one stitch for every row, you will have too many stitches crammed into a one inch space. A good rule of thumb is to pick up a ratio of two sts for every three rows or three sts for every four rows along the edge. (I.e., for 2 / 3, you wouldd: *pick up the 1st stitch in the 1st row, pick up the 2nd stitch in the 2nd row, skip the 3rd row; repeat from * across the whole edge.)
Once your stitches are picked up, and the set-up row is completed, let’s talk about short row shaping.
One of my favorite blogs for general knitting advice and how-to is TECHknitting. The anonymous tech editor, Techknitter, thoroughly explains different knitting techniques with technically accurate drawings (compared to my “stylistic” approach). Below is Techknitter’s drawing of a swatch featuring short rows.
The grey stitches represent ordinary knitted fabric. The yellow and blue elongated loops represent the elongated stitches, and represent the edge of the short row shaping, but the main area of activity occurs within the wrap and turn stitches represented by the mint and pink areas. Essentially wrapping and turning when incorporating short row shaping “joins” the increased sections to the rest of your knitting. The in-depth explanation from Techknitter on her blog is worth the read, especially for “first time short row-ers”. You can read more about different short row techniques on the Techknitter’s blog here.
Stay tuned for next week when we’ll check in on everyone’s progress and discuss binding-off, weaving in ends and other finishing for our Rosemont Cardigan! Don’t forget to show us your progress using the #RosemontKAL hashtag on Instagram and find us @kelbournewoolens so we can see all of your lovely progress.
-Leah