[music] in this tutorial, we're going to learn tomake the sweater on the mannequin behind me. i've named this sweater three rectangles,two triangles. i named it that because i want to emphasizehow simple these shapes are to knit. if you've never knit a sweater before, butyou're comfortable with both knitting and purling, this could be a good first sweaterfor you. this is knit in wool bulky yarn on size 9needles so it's pretty quick to knit. i've also sized this sweater from xs to 3xl. and i've included a couple of customizations,um, in the video and in the pattern to help
you get a perfect fit out of this sweater. and my hope is that what you learn here inthis tutorial you can take on with you to knit other sweaters. if you'd like to get a copy of the patternto follow along, you can click the link in the video description below to go to my website. i'll also give you a direct link to ravelry,where you can get the pattern. and i'll give you a link on screen here, aswell. speaking of customization, you might noticethat there are no buttons, no zipper, no belt, nothing like that on this sweater.
i built that in with the sweater. this is the sweater that i wanted to wear,and i didn't want a fastener like that. but you'll see there's a pin, a brooch, onthe lapel. i designed this sweater with that design ofpin in mind. it's called - this kind of pin has a millionnames. celtic brooch, a pennanular, a cloak pin,a viking pin, there are lots of names for it because it's an ancient pin design. and i really like it because the pin itself,the design of the pin itself, is the closure. and my tastes tend to lean towards the simplerthings, and i really like this.
anyway, when i was designing this sweater,i went online to see if i could find someone who made these pins just the way i like them. and i found a woman named ally shaw, she hasan etsy store and a website. she is a metal forger, and she makes thesepins. i dropped her a note and i said, hey, howabout i talk about your shop in a knitting tutorial coming up? because i want to use this pin on my sweater. and she got back to me right away. and i adore that kind of customer service.
and she said, yeah, mention away! i'll havesome of these ready to sell. so i'll give you links to find ally in thevideo description below, i'll tell you that she lives in england. but it was still just nine days shipping forme here in texas. from england to the us. so chances are if you order your pin early,your pin will arrive in the mail before you even finish knitting the sweater. now she calls this an anglo saxon pennanularbrooch. just another variation on the name!
and the reason i have this here on the lapel- this is the way i plan to wear this sweater most of the time. but if i go out side in the cold wind, orit's just chilly outside, take the brooch, close up the sweater, one side flaps overto the other half, and you just pin it here, and then you're protected against the coldwind. so this is what i did. if you do want to add buttons or a belt, thoseare certainly easy customizations to make. now, um, now that i've talked up this pinso much, i want to show you how to work it. because it can be a bit of a mind puzzle ifyou've never used one before.
let's go ahead and take a look. here is a sample of the knitting, the mockrib stitch used in the pattern, and this is a littler, a smaller version of the very samepin that's on the mannequin right now. ally sent me a couple of different sizes,and i chose the bigger one, i thought it was in better proportion for the sweater. and so it looks like this, and these pinsare really perfect for knits because this is not sharp. it goes between stitches without splittingthem. you see?
so that's the first thing you do, is you findwhere you want to pin it, you put the pin in through, and then fold it over and lineup the gap in the ring with the pin. once you do that, you twist the ring, i'mnot doing a very good job. this is a brand new pin, too. might be a littlesticky. you know what i'm doing? i'm pushing one waywith one hand and the other way with the other hand. which is stopping it. there we go. so once you twist it, then it's secure, it'snot going anywhere.
and that's the decoration. the decorative part of this pin is the closure. i think that's everything you need in theintroduction here, again a link to get your pattern is in the video description below. and next up we're going to get started onthe knitting. to get started with the knitting, you're goingto of course need your yarn, and your needles, and your pattern. and for this i used a bulky weight wool yarn. and i really recommend using a wool or a woolblend, or another animal fiber with this.
there is a lot of knitting there. and if you use, for example, a cellulose fiber,some acrylic fibers, it's going to make the sweater heavier, and it isn't going to hangas nicely as this lighter weight wool will. wool is warm, but the weight of it isn't heavy. and that's how i got the results here. so you're going to have everything ready,and you're going to start by knitting a swatch, right? you're going to knit a swatch. [laughs] and you're going to wash and block that swatchaccording to the yarn directions.
because i made mine out of 100% wool, i didwhat i do every time i wash wool. i filled the sink with lukewarm water, i putmy swatch in there, i let it soak, i squeezed out the water and let it dry flat. and that's when i checked gauge. now some of you are going to get really excitedabout this, because for this sweater you get to swatch a pocket. yes, that's my new phrase. swatch a pocket. no wasted swatches here.
you're going to follow the directions to knitthe pocket, and then wash and block according to the yarn's washing instructions. and then measure your gauge. you want to make sure you wash it first, becausesome yarns go nuts when they get wet, and your sweater will end up being a very differentsize after it's wet. but if you wash it first, before you startknitting, you measure your gauge on the washed swatch, that will make all of the difference. so, you'll do that, you'll wash it, you'llmeasure your gauge, and i'll give you a link here for exactly how to measure gauge to makesure you're getting the correct number of
stitches per inch. before you start. because you may need to adjust your needlesize to get the perfect gauge. and then, um, you'll have a pocket! you'll have a pocket finished! no wasted knitting. not that swatching is ever wasted, but... so you have that. now, moving forward, i want to talk abouthow to work the mock rib stitch.
which this whole pattern is knit in. mock rib. and let me see here. yep, that's what we're going to do next. let's go ahead and take a look at my sample. this is, of course, in the works and not yetblocked. and i want to show you - you see how prominentthese knit stitches are in the columns. and of course, this is in a different colorthan i'm about to swap out. but here it is. this is a blocked swatch.
and the little beads of purl stitches betweenthe columns of the knit stitches become more prominent after washing. i thought that was interesting. here is apples to oranges, or oranges to oranges. this is the exact same yarn, not, it's onlybeen steam blocked, not wet blocked, and you see how the bumps between the knit columnsbecome more prominent. okay. that's all i wanted to show you. just a quick review of the mock rib stitch.
because it will take you about two rows tomemorize this. it's very simple. you're going to start, every edge stitch keptin stockinette. so you have a knit stitch, we're on a rightside row. yarn forward to work a purl stitch. yarn back to work a knit stitch. this is every right side row. that's it. i'm not going to do anything elsefancy. i'm going to actually speed through this,because i want to get to a wrong side row
to demonstrate really the only other thingthat you're going to need to know to do this. so that's a right side row. now to work a wrong side row, it is just straightup purling. but i'm not going to show you that. i'm going to show you how to bind off purlwise. which is what i, throughout the pattern, everypiece is bound off purlwise on the wrong side of the work. so i'm going to start by purling two stitches. and then i really just want to bind one offover the other.
but to make this easier, i always pull theyarn back between the two needles so it's out of the way. so i can bind one stitch off. then i pull the yarn forward again to purlanother. then i pull the yarn back, just to get itout of the way. to pull that over. yarn forward, to purl another. and this will leave you with the nicest edgeon the right side of the work for seaming. with that there is one more thing i'm goingto show you.
if you are going to use a wool yarn in yoursweater, you have a great advantage, in that you can spit splice new balls of yarn togetherwithout tying a bunch of knots in your yarn, or having a bunch of ends to weave in whenyou're finished with the whole sweater. so i'm going to create a situation here. let's pretend this is my work, and i justran out of yarn. i need to attach a new ball of yarn. and this is my new ball of yarn. this only works on animal fibers. you can try it on some blends, it's alwaysworth trying, because sometimes it does work.
surprisingly it does work on blends. but it always works with animal fibers. the first this you want to do is untwist theplies. and this is a three ply yarn. i'm going to separate it two and one. two plies and one ply. i'm going to cut an inch out of one ply. i'm going to go over to my new ball of yarn. untwist the plies, separate it half and half,or as close as you can get.
and i'll cut an inch out of the two plieson this one. then i hold those together, and this is wherethe spit comes in. don't let anyone tell you you can use water,because spit has something special. and the fuzz in your mouth, after you're done.[laughs]; is also special. then i'm going to twist these together. and i'm going to keep talking with fuzz inmy mouth. twist these together, and then pull that sothe cut parts line up. and then you're going to use heat and friction,to actually felt these pieces together. i'm actually going to use the leg of my jeans,because that's way better friction than the
palms of my hands. you can work at this to make sure it looksreally good, and when you're finished, you have yarn with no break in it. no ends to weave in, no knots in your work,this is why i love wool yarn. one of the many reasons i love wool yarn. okay, so you are going to make a back, a bigrectangle back. two rectangle fronts, and a couple of trianglesleeves. and next up we're going to talk about seamingthe sweater. putting it all together.
once you get the pieces of the sweater finished,you're going to want to steam block them out into shape before you start seaming them. and when i say that, this is just a way ofmaking sure they're really flat and square to make seaming easier. i can give you a link here to my steam blockingvideo, but really, all you want to do is pin them out to size, your size, the size i havelisted in the pattern. and then use the steam iron and blast steaminto the knitted fabric without pressing down with the iron. and when you do that, you can pat it out,and it will be smooth and flat enough to seam.
and then once the whole thing is seamed together,you can do a wet block, where you put the whole thing in the sink with wool wash. first let me show you exactly how this goestogether. let's take a look. i have a little mini sweater knit here. this is the back. and this is the right side of the work, hereis the wrong side. so you have a big rectangle for the back. and then here is a front.
the front piece is going to be wider thanhalf of the back. and that's because it will be seamed hereat the shoulder, and then part of it lies open like this for the lapels. the pin goes here. and then if it's cold, you can close it backup and put the pin here to hold it shut. so you have the back and two fronts. i have just one front here. and then you have this shape which is thesleeve. yours is going to be much longer. [laughs]
and the sleeve, once it's folded in half,and seamed here, makes the rest of the sweater. so that's how the whole thing is put together. so these pieces have not been wet blocked,but they have been steam blocked. so they are ready to go together. the first seam that i'm going to do is acrossthe shoulder. and this is going to be a stitch to stitch,a bind off row to a bind off row seaming. and that's what i want to demonstrate howto do. you're going to actually hold the pieces likethis to seam them together. and i give you guidelines in the pattern forhow much to seam in, leaving the back of the
neck open and this part open for the lapel. but this is a place where customization canreally work well for you. in the pattern i give you a suggested amountto seam in. try the sweater on. you'll do it on both sides,try the sweater on. if it's staying up and fitting well, you'regood. i found that on my own sweater, the one onthe mannequin, i had to seam mine in quite a bit more. and i'm not sure if it's because i have smallshoulders or a thin neck, or whatever it was, just by taking it a half inch on each side,the sweater fit so much better.
so that's something you can customize rightthere. so, let me first show you how to do this sideseam, or this shoulder seam. dramatic color change here - sorry about that! these are two mock rib samples, and theseare two bind off rows. and the way these are going together righthere is exactly the way the mattress stitch is going to work on the shoulders for you. i'm going to demonstrate this in some prettygood detail, but if you've never done the mattress stitch before, here is a link tomy video that's dedicated to this stitch. that will go over it very very slowly foryou.
i'm also going to use this contrasting colorof yarn, to make it easy to see. you want to thread your yarn on to a tapestryneedle. and i'm starting here at what would be theoutside edge of the shoulder. i'm going to put my needle, from back to front,through the very corner. whoops, i split a stitch there. into the very corner of this piece. going through once, and then going througha second time in the same hole just to secure it there. and then i'm going to go through the veryedge piece, the edge of the piece here.
okay, now the two pieces are pretty much attachedto each other. don't pull that tightly yet. you have these vs that make up the bind offrow. and underneath each one, you'll see that thereare two legs of a v. or, in this case, yeah, it's two legs of av. go underneath both of those legs, and pullthat through. don't tighten it up yet. jump over to the other side, and go underthe two legs of the first v you see there. just under the v that runs this way, thisone will run this way.
then i'm going to jump back over to this side. go into the same hole i came out of here. and grab two legs of the next v. jump back over to this side, go into the samehole i came out of, grab two legs of the next v. over here, two legs. going back into the same hole you came outof makes it really easy, and that's actually the reason i don't pull it tightly, untili've finished a little bit more of it. i'm going to go ahead and pull it now.
this is what i call the magic moment. it makes it easier to see, to put your needleback into the same hole you came out of, especially because you're going to be seaming with thesame color of yarn you used to knit the sweater. and you won't have this awesome contrast likei do. but i also wait to pull it tightly becauseof this. because that is awesome. look how beautiful. everything lines up, and the seam is invisible. i need to pull it a little tighter down here.
you see that? and so your shoulders are going to look reallynice. you're going to seam the shoulder up to thedistance i recommend in the pattern, try it on, and see if you want to adjust it at allbefore you fasten off this yarn that you're using for the seaming. i'm just checking now to see if there is anythingelse i want to cover... yes, okay. the last bit of this, after you've done theshoulder seams, this is another area where you can do a little customization on the sweaterfor yourself.
you'll have the shoulder seams stitched, thesides will still be open, no sleeves attached. you can actually take this opportunity tomeasure how long, exactly how long, you want the sleeves to be for you. in the pattern i give recommended sleeve lengths,using standards for sizing for the different sizes, xs through 3xl. but i can imagine a really tall woman, whohappens to wear and xs needing much longer sleeves than i list in the pattern for a standardxs. so this is a chance for you to get that justright. you're going to try on your sweater.
well, it's not a sweater yet, it's basicallya back and two fronts that are seamed at the shoulder. and because this is a drop shoulder design,the shoulder will go down like this, and part of the back and the sides will become theshoulder. your sweater will end here, once you pushit down over your shoulder like this. so you'll need some help with this. put the pieces on, the "sweater" on, and thensmooth it down over your shoulder like this. and then take a measurement from there, tothe end of your sleeve, how long you want your sleeve to be.
so, smooth the sweater down over your shoulder,start your tape measure there, hold your arm out and measure it out to how long you wantthe sleeve to be. i have really long arms. so i always think it's a luxury if i can getmy sweaters down to this first knuckle on my thumb. that's one of the beaties of making hand - thebeautiful things about making handknits for me is making the sleeves long enough for me. so i measured from here, down to here, andthat's how long i made the sleeves for myself. if you're making the sweater for someone else,sticking to the standards that i put in the
pattern should be pretty safe, getting itjust the way you want it is easy to do if you have someone with a tape measure who canhelp you measure how long you want that to be. speaking of the sleeves, next up we're goingto talk about seaming the sleeves and seaming the pockets on to the sweater. and that's pretty much the rest of the finishingwork you have to do! the last bit of finishing work you'll haveto do is to attach the sleeves and the pockets, and i'm going to demonstrate that now. let's take a look at how the sleeves cometogether with everything else.
here are the same tiny little sweater samplesthat i showed you before. we've already seamed the shoulders. here is the sleeve. you will fold it in half, and it goes on likethis. very simple. this was really simple seaming here, it'sa little bit different when it comes down to the sleeve. let me open this up. you're going to attach it this way, whichmeans you're going to be attaching the bind
off row to the side stitches. which makes things only slightly different. not that hard. i'm going to demonstrate that to you now. oh, let me just say. the reason that it is a little bit differentis because knit stitches are slightly wider than they are tall. so you want to pick up every stitch on thesleeve and skip every fourth on - i just got that backwards!
you want to pick up every stitch on the body,and skip every fourth on the sleeve. promise you, it does work. i'm going to show you how to do it right now. we're back to these brightly lit samples here! i'm going to thread my tapestry yarn here. and attach the yarn just the same way thati did before. this piece would be the sleeve. and this would be the body, seaming into theside. you see how these are just square samples,but they end up being the exact same experience
you'll have in the sweater itself. so the way i'm going to do this is i'm goingto pick up the first stitch here, this is all just like we did before. and then pick up a ladder over here. two stitches over here. pick up the next one here. and go into the same hole you came out of,and pick up two here. this is really no different than what youjust did last time, but it's going to get interesting here in just a moment.
pick up two over here. so i picked up three over here, and threeover here. i'm going to jump back over to the sleeveagain, but i'm not going to pick up the next v i see. i'm going to skip that one, and pick up thenext. and then i go into the same hole i came outof over here. whoops. picking up two. so this is how it goes. you pick up every stitch on the body, andskip every fourth stitch on the sleeve.
and that will make it all match up and lookright. since the knit stitch is not a perfect square. and even though i seamed in that crazy color,i'm going to have a really nice seam here. okay, the last thing i want to talk about,you're getting so close to wearing your sweater now! i want to talk about the pockets. this is not in any proportions of the pockets,but what you'll do is you'll line up the rows. determine kind of where you want it, i triedit on and i used some markers to pin exactly where i wanted the pocket to land.
you have the columns here that you want toline up. and you'll get it just where you want it. and then using, of course, the same colorof yarn that you used to knit the sweater, and a tapestry needle. you want to make sure you don't stray fromthis same - you don't have to knit into a column, but just pick a spot, and just alwaysalways go, make sure you keep it straight, and go back into the same stitch of the columngoing down. and there might be people who are better atsewing than i am who can suggest a different stitch, but this whip stitch seems to workpretty well.
it's quick to work. and you'll do that all the way down, and themake sure you're lined up when you come back up this way. and your pocket will be secure. with all that done, you'll want to followthe washing instructions to wash and block your sweater. one hint, something that i did is this. this was pretty bulky when it was finished,it was very heavy. so instead of just wrapping it up in towelsto remove the excess moisture, i have a top
loading washer. i was able to put it into the washer, turnit to spin, to spin out most of the water, and it didn't do any harm to the sweater atall. it just spun out most of the water. and then it was light enough so that i wasactually able to pick it up and put it on the blocking board, and let it block to measurements. anyway, that's it! i hope you enjoy this sweater, i hope youlove making it! good luck.
[whooshing sounds]