Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 12:49:10 -0500 From: "Jimmy L. Simmons"Subject: Re: [BOND] short rowing There are no secrets in working short rows but there are a couple of rules. First, since you are usually pulling more than one needle into FHP, these needles must be on the side OPPOSITE of the carriage. If you pull more than one needle into FHP on the carriage side you are courting disaster. Second, after you knit the row that you just placed needles in FHP, place the yarn UNDER the needle in FHP adjacent to the first needle to be knit on the return stroke and over the top of the rest of the needles in FHP. If you don't do this then you will leave an ugly hole. What happens is the yarn will then skip across all the needles you have in FHP and be wrapped around the one next to the first needle that is in WP. Third, use claw weights to keep the tension on the fabric where it is to be knitted. Place a claw weight under the outside stitches that are knitted (both outsides). This is very important because without these weights you will tend to drop the first stitches because the fabric is hanging on the needles in FHP. Jimmy L. Simmons ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 17:16:28 EDT From: Smithercol@aol.com Subject: [BOND] Short row shaping shoulders >But can someone please explain the secrets of short rowing? > And when is it a good idea to do it? I do it often because it makes the sweater fit better. Look in the mirror at how much our shoulders slope down from the neck. It is especially important on vests or sleeveless tops to keep the armhole nice and snug. This is the "long and detailed" description of short-row shaping. Instead of binding off the stitches in steps, short row them as follows. I begin shaping one or even two rows before the directions say because I then knit one or two rows after doing the shaping as will be explained later. Let's say you want to decrease 7 stitches on each side three times for this example. Pull 7 needles forward to holding position on the shoulder side opposite of the carriage and knit across. Wrap the yarn around the needle in HP closest to the last stitch you just knit. The wrap will prevent a gap. Pull 7 needles forward to HP opposite of the carriage on the other shoulder side. Take up the slack in the yarn and knit across to those stitches. Wrap the yarn around the needle in HP closest to the last stitch you just knit on that side. Hang claw weights as needed because the stitches in holding position begin to make the adjacent stitches slack. Pull 7 needles forward to HP opposite the carriage again, knit over and wrap the yarn around the closest needle in HP. Continue knitting and wrapping until you have finished the SRS. What you have done is knit less rows on shoulder side stitches than on the inner most stitches thus producing a slight slant. Your carriage will be in the middle of the work on one side. There are several ways to finish at this point. What I like to do is have one or two rows on top of the short rows so that the shoulder seam doesn't look like stair steps, so I push the needles on the side opposite the carriage in HP back into work making sure all the latches are open. (Note that you will see the extra wraps on the stitches that were wrapped. If you forgot to wrap, redo.) Knit across all those stitches in WP, then pull the other shoulder stitches back into work and knit across to those. You have knit more on one side that the other so I pull the other shoulder and the center stitches out of work and knit only the one shoulder again. Take off the center neck stitches as desired. At this point, you can take off the shoulder stitches separately on WY or garter bars and seam them to the front shoulder stitches as usual. The wrapped stitches will be one or two rows below the shoulder seam and will look like little tucks and the shoulder seam will have a downward shaping. If you shape the front and back using the same number of stitches out of work, the little tucks will be directly across from each other. Shaping the front will be the same except that you are only putting stitches into HP every other row on the shoulder side. If you shape the back, you will want to shape the front too. This is not as bad as it sounds! Good luck Colleen Smithercol@aol.com
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Author : Steph Thornton.
Last modified on : 25th January 2000.