in this tutorial we're going to learn to makethe sweater that i am wearing right now. we'll give you a picture on screen as well. thistutorial is a free pattern, free tutorial brought to you by lion brand yarns. it issized from small to 2xl and if you'd like to get your free copy of the pattern to followalong i'll give you a link here on screen to take you to my website where i have a bitmore information and a link to the lion brand website where you can get your pattern. this sweater is knit with wool-ease yarn.it's actually not the yarn the pattern calls for but we're going to substitute wool-ease.this is a great yarn i've used it for several tutorials in the past. it is a wool and syntheticblend but it feels like wool and it's super
easy to care for it's actually machine washableand dry-able it comes in a lot of colors. i don't recommend putting your hand knitsin the dryer unless it's a blanket or something, but if your finished sweater does end up inthe dryer it's not going to be ruined which is good. this yarn is widely available that's one reasoni like to use this in tutorials because you can find it almost anywhere and i'll giveyou a link on my website to where you can find a lion brand retailer near you, it'salso a really good value. to knit this sweater i would put this at aboutan advanced beginner level. this tutorial won't teach you how to knit you need to knowhow to both knit and purl, and if you're confident
with those two things, this tutorial shouldwork for you because i'll walk you through all the rest of the tricky parts. to knit this you will need the pattern says29 inch circular needles. if you have 32 inch circular needles that's fine that's what iused to knit my sweater. you'll need it in two sizes and the pattern lists two sizesbut we're going to talk about checking gauge that you might need to adjust your size alittle bit but we'll talk about that in just a moment. you'll also need four stitch markersand a tapestry needle, a blunt end needle to weave in the ends. if you get your wool-easeyarn and your free copy of the pattern, in the next segment we're going to talk aboutswatching and casting on.
okay, if you've got your yarn and your needlesand your free copy of the pattern, you're ready to go. before you get excited and caston for the sweater it's important that you knit a gauge swatch, and this is an exampleof a gauge swap that i knit for the sweater that i'm wearing. i'll give you instructionsfor exactly how i did this gauge swatch with the garter stitch boarder if you'd like todo one like this. it's not necessary to make a garter stitch boarder but since the gaugeswatch is in stockinette stitch it can curl on the sides and so the garter stitch boarderhelps it lie flat. i just think it's pretty so i always knit my gauge swatches like this. i knit this using the larger of the two needlesizes, which the gauge is in the larger of
the two needle sizes, and then i treated theswatch just like i was going to treat my finished sweater. i put it in the washing machine ongentle and then i let the water spin out the normal washing machine cycle and then i setit out flat to dry because even though this yarn can be machine dried i know that i won'tmachine dry my sweater just to help it last longer and look better longer. then after that was done i took a ruler andi measured the number of stitches per inch that i'm getting. it just so happen that mygauge was right on, right from the start on my first try, but if i was getting too manystitches per inch then i would need to go down a needle size to make the stitches bigger.i'm sorry let me start over because this gets
so twisted up in my own head and it's goodfor me to get this straight. if you are getting too many stitches per inch you need to goup a needle size so your stitches are bigger so there are fewer of them per inch. if youare getting too few stitches per inch you need to go down a needle size to make yourstitches smaller so you get more of them per inch. i can't stress how important the gauge swatchis because even if you are one stitch off over four inches around the entire circumferenceof the sweater, that's going to make a huge difference and your sweaters going to a reallydifferent size then the one that you're after. i hear from people all the time saying, "idon't bother gauge swatching it always turns
out fine," but do you really want to put 30,40, 50 hours into a sweater and then not have it be just right? i think it's pretty importantand it's only a few minutes to knit a gauge swatch and it is totally worthwhile. okay,i'll get off my soap box now about gauge swatching. really, for a successful sweater, this isimportant. okay, so you have two needle sizes that you'reworking with because all of the ribbing in the sweater is done in a slightly smallerneedle size and that's just to make the ribbing kind of scrunch in a little but more thanthe rest of the sweater and that's a nice feature. we're going to go ahead and takea look at what i have here and getting started with the sweater, let's see.
i have my needles and my 32-inch cord andi have part of the cast on done. i'm going to show you exactly what i'm doing here. iam working on, i'm making a much smaller sweater so that it will fit here easily on cameraand i can show you the techniques pretty quickly. i'm using the long tail cast on. this is theexact same as the slingshot cast on if you're familiar with that but i'll give you a linkhere to how i'm doing this cast on. okay, i'm not sure if that's the correct numberbut that's okay. oh, let me show you this one thing. you needto know how much yarn to leave for your cast on. you can do this and wrap the yarn aroundthe needle and each wrap is just long enough, with a little bit extra for you to cast ona lot of stitches like you'll need for this.
you can wrap the yarn 25 times and multiplythat about close to the number that you have that you need for your cast on for your size.i have some extra yarn here so i am just going to go ahead and break that. okay, now i'm on my smaller needles and thefirst part of the pattern has me working in knit two purl two rib, and this is just afiner point that i'm going to bring up. this is what i consider to be the wrong side ofthe cast on it has purl bumps on it and this is what i consider to be the right side ofthe cast on. i want the pretty side of the cast on to be the right side of my sweater,so on this very first row after the cast on i'm going to start with purl two so that ihave knit two on the other side. don't over
think this it doesn't make that much of adifference. it's just one of the finer points. starting with purl two on this side, workingin knit two purl two rib, i'm ready to go to knit two now, so i pull the yarn back betweenthe two needles and work knit two pull the yarn forward between the two needles to purltwo. again, for this pattern it is important that you know how to work both knits and purls.i'm just showing you how to work those together. yarn back to knit two. yarn forward to purltwo. then you're going to work this all the wayacross. you'll turn your work, and staying in pattern, you'll start with a knit two onthe next row after you turn your work. you keep working this for a couple of inches becausethis is knit top down, this is our collar.
after you knit a couple of inches you'll needto increase by either two, four, or six stitches i think it is depending on your size. i'mending up, i did not pay attention to my cast on number i should end with purl two but i'mjust ending with purl one. you'll continue that ribbing in the smallersize needle for two inches like i said, and then on the last row, the last wrong siderow where your cast on has the purl bumps on it, you're going to need to do the increasethat i mentioned and you can do any increase. it really isn't going to show between theribbing and the stockinette part of the body. you can do kfb, knit front back, you can domake one whatever increase you like. the pattern says to space it evenly across the row, don'tget to caught up in you know counting 10 and
putting one and counting. if they're justthere and they're not right next to each other no one's going to know it's going to workout fine. then after you work that last wrong side rowin the ribbing where you included the number of increase the pattern calls for in yoursize, you're going to want to pick up your larger needle because as we move forward withthe raglan increases, the stockinette part of the sweater is knit with the larger sizeneedle and that's what we're going to do next. once you have your ribbed collar finishedand you work the two increases, i think i said decreases in the last video, the numberof increases you need to work for your size to get you up to the right number, we're readyto start on the body of the sweater, and the
raglan increases which is the like most ofthe sweater is done this way. the raglan, the top down raglan style makes it reallyeasy to knit and to size properly and work the sleeves and the body all at the same timeand, let's go ahead and take a look because we're ready to get started with that. i am working with a tiny little sample hereso i can get through the steps quickly. your rib collar is going to be bigger than thiseven in the smallest size. so this is row one of shape body. you're going to knit thenumber of stitches the pattern tells you to for your size. we're just in plain knittingnow. this round we're going to place our stitch markers which will be important for the restof the body up to the sleeves.
you're going to yarn over, which means pullingthe yarn forward between the two needles and the next stitch. the yarn over is an increaseand it leaves a hole under your work and that is a-okay because these holes are going tobe decorative and the raglan increases as they move along. then you're going to takea stitch marker and put it on the right needle. this is the set up round really, and yarnover again and then knit the number the pattern tells you to. then we're going to do the same thing at thenext spot. yarn over, knit one, put a marker one the right needle, yarn over, and knitup to the next one. the numbers for this tiny little sweater that i'm using for demonstrationis half the numbers used in the smallest size if you're curious. i'm ready to place my nextone. yarn over, knit one, marker, yarn over,
and knit up to the next spot. then the lastone yarn over, knit one, place marker, yarn over, and knit to end. now that those markers are in place, they'regoing to our guideline for most of the sweater knitting from this point. if you've neverknit a top down raglan sweater before it works out so cool. this is going to be the frontof the sweater actually the left front. this is the left sleeve, this is the back, thisis the right sleeve, and this is the right front. it's crazy how it works but it does,as long as you do the increases at the marker it ends up just shaping itself so it fitscorrectly over shoulders, and makes the front of the sweater. we'll see how that works outhere in a moment.
then row two and all the other wrong siderows are just purling across. if you'll be patient with me here i'm going to work thisso i can show you a right side row with the markers placed. you see here i'm coming upto a yarn over and it's just, it's not even a real loop on the needle it's just kind oflaying over the needle, but i treat that like a normal stitch and purl into it. okay, now this is row three, and pretty muchevery raglan increase from here on out, this is what it's going to look like. you're goingto knit up to one stitch before the marker. okay? there i have one stitch and then themarker. i'll yarn over, knit one, slip the marker, yarn over, and then knit up to onestitch before the next marker.
there i am one stitch before the marker. yarnover, knit one, slip the marker, yarn over, and knit up to the next one. it actually doesn'tinclude "slip marker", which is abbreviated sm. it doesn't include that in your patternso you might just want to take a pen and write yarn over, knit one, slip marker, yarn over,so that you have a quick visual for exactly what you need to do when you come to a marker.yarn over, knit one, slip marker, yarn over. after you work on this sweater for awhileyou'll be able to do that in your sleep. yarn over, knit one, slip marker, yarn over. thenof course when you turn your work, all the wrong side rows are just purling across. now you'll keep doing that for the numberof times the pattern tells you to for your
size and you'll end up with something thatlooks like this. we have, look at how beautiful the raglan increases look when they startlining up. my ribbed collar, my front of the sweater and the sleeve and the raglan increasesbetween them. here is my stitch marker. it's easy to tell how many you've done you knowthe pattern might tell you that you need to continue working these a total of 24 times.just count the holes. each one of these holes is one increase round. just a little tip,it makes it easy to keep track. now when you get to this point you can actuallytry the sweater on to make sure that it's going to fit. here's a tapestry needle. youtake a piece of yarn in a contrasting color, and you can slide all of the stitches ontothe scrap yarn, a very long piece of scrap
yarn, just through the markers and everythingelse all the way around and then try the sweater on. if you put these two points together underyour arm, because this is the front and this is the sleeve, and these match up under yourarm comfortably then it's going to be a good fit. if it feels like it's tight under yourarm you can work a few more raglan increases to make it a bit bigger, or if it feels likeyou've gone too far you can rip back a little bit. hopefully that didn't happen. yeah, just match these up under your arm youmight need some help to try and keep all the pieces together while doing that. then theneedle back into the stitches that you held on the scrap yarn and then we're ready toseparate the sleeves. raglan sweaters are
so cool this way. we are going to leave thesleeves in reserve and just knit the rest of the body and then go back and knit thesleeves later and this is how this is going to work. once you have the exact size you want andyou're ready to go, you'll knit up to the, two stitches before the marker. of coursethis is all spelled out clearly in the pattern. i'm just showing you the technique here. okay,two stitches before the marker, i'm actually going to bind off this stitch, this stitch,and the one after the marker. i knit one, pull that stitch over to bind off one, knitanother, pull that stitch over to bind off two, remove the marker, knit one, pull thatstitch over to bind off three.
now i'm going to knit across the sleeve stitches.this will all make sense in a moment. it seems like a crazy thing to do right now. top downraglan sweaters all pretty much work the same way but you'll see different techniques usedin this part and this is kind of a unique one here. okay, we're two stitches before the markernow. i'll knit one to bind off that yarn over, knit one to bind off that knit stitch, removethe marker and knit one to bind off that stitch. okay, now i think the pattern actually tellsyou to transfer the sleeve stitches before you do the second group of bind off. do thesecond group of bind off and slide that stitch over to the left needle. now we're going toput the sleeve stitches on scrap yarn.
i have my tapestry needle threaded with acontrasting color of yarn and because i'm right-handed i'm going to turn the work becausei would rather have this in my right hand. once i turn the work, all the stitches onthe left needle are my sleeve stitches. i'm just going to slide those over to the tapestryneedle. then once those sleeve stitches are on there we're just going to forget aboutthem for a while. we'll come back and knit those later. slide this stitch that you slipped over backto the right needle. your working yarn is coming from that stitch so it belongs on theright needle, and then knit up to two stitches before the next marker. once you get to twostitches before the next marker you're going
to do the exact same thing we did before,which is bind off this one, bind off this one, remove the marker, bind off this one,and then work across the last marker, do the same bind off thing, and then turn your workif you're right handed and put all of these stitches back onto a piece of scrap yarn andthen knit across the rest. when you come to working the next row, you'llhave these crazy gaps where the sleeves used to be. you're going to end up working thistogether, just work across this row like there's no gap -- it'll be a purl row -- work acrossthis row like there's no gap and these things, these two stitches will be attached and nextto each other from there on out. okay, that was like the biggest part of knittingthis sweater is the raglan increases and separating
the sleeves. so in the next video we're goingto talk about knitting the sleeves. after you've separated the sleeves you'regoing to knit the body for as long as you want and this is a cropped sweater but itdoesn't have to be cropped. you can actually make it as long as you want. i added a littlebit of length to mine because i'm almost six feet tall and a little bit longer would fitme better. then you're going to switch the smaller needles to knit the bottom ribbing.the only thing to keep in mind, like when i knit my body, the body of my sweater a littlebit longer, is that it took a little bit more yarn than the pattern calls for. i boughtan extra hank just in case and i had plenty of yarn and then i knit the bottom boarderjust as the pattern called for it and that's
how i ended up with this one. so let's goahead and take a look because we are ready to knit a sleeve. okay. here's the tiny little sweater, againthis is not a baby sweater it is not proportioned for a baby because the sleeves are way toosmall it is just of the number of, half of all the numbers of the smallest sized sweaterin the pattern. it makes it easier to demonstrate on small like this. this is a finished sleeve over here and thisis one that still has the stitches reserved one the scrap yarn. this is how we're goingto do this. take your smaller needle and slide it in with the scrap yarn all the way around.these are knit flat and then they have a tiny
seem in them, which we'll cover here in justa moment. okay, this last stitch is kind of hidden inthere. i'm going to grab the scrap yarn on both ends and pop that stitch out so i canget to it. okay, i actually tied a knot in my scrap yarn just so i wouldn't have to worryabout anything, wouldn't have to worry about it sliding out. i have a snag somewhere, whichhappens sometimes. usually the scrap yarn just slides out but if there's a little snagit will catch. there it was, there was a split piece of yarn in there but i found it. okay, so my needle is back into the sleevestitches and it's important that you use a circular needle here even though we're knittingthis flat because there's a lot of curve to
this right here. so i take my yarn and withthe right side of the work facing me, i'll put my needle into that first stitch and i'mgoing to flop the yarn over onto my finger like this just to make a loop here. put thatloop on the back needle and pull it through. now the yarn's attached. i'll knit a secondone and just like we've done with all the boarders we're going to work knit two, purltwo. that is really it for this sleeve. i addeda little bit of length to my sleeve by starting out with the larger needle and knitting aknit row, a purl row, a knit row, a purl row. i'm looking down at my sweater. i must havedone that for a couple of inches to get the sleeve length that i have, and then i switchedto the smaller needle. but the pattern has
you go straight into the knit two purl two,but you can make the sleeves as long as you like. then you'll turn your work and just work theknit two, purl two and after you get it as long as you like or as long as the patternsays you can bind off and that is a sleeve finished. now here i have a finished sleeve.i did not add any stockinette to this one, this one started out straight out with knittwo purl two. i have a couple of ends here. this is open here and when i bind off thesleeve, if i think ahead, i can leave a longer strand after i break the yarn so that i haveenough yarn to seem with. i didn't really do that. i have a nice length here but it'snot quite long enough to knit that seem, so
i'll show you how to do this with anotherpiece of yarn on your tapestry needle. i'm going to get myself into position hereto seam this up. i'll start at the bottom of the ribbing. i'm going to go into the verycorner, pull it through, leaving myself a little bit of a tail, and go through thatsame hole again now that's fastened. i'll go into the hole, go into the very cornerhere, and now the two sides are connected. the goal here is, with the right side facingyou, pick up from over here, over here, over here, over here, back and forth from leftto right and then we'll tighten it all up and it should look really good. you want to unroll this first side so yousee the very edge column of stitches. in between
the column, the first column and the secondcolumn there are these ladders. you reach in there and put your needle under two ladders,two ladder rungs i suppose. same thing over here, roll to the very edge and between thefirst column and the second column there are ladder rungs. then you go into the same holeyou came out of, jumping back over here, and grab two ladder rungs. go into the same holeyou came out of, and grab two ladder rungs. you see i haven't tightened it up it and there'sa reason for that. you just keep jumping back and forth. this is called the mattress stitch. it leavesa seam on the inside of the work but it looks perfect on the outside of the work. now ihave a little bit there. i'm going to go ahead
and tighten it up now, and you can reallyyank on it, it's fine. then stretch it back out again. you see what i have here, because we startedwith knit two and ended with knit two and a seem of knit stitches from each side goteaten in the seam, the rib is unbroken. it looks so perfect. then of course i would continueup using the mattress stitch all the way up. things get a little bit different when youcome to where the yarn overs were but just keep working the same thing from each side.you can even work it down a little bit into the beginning of the body to make sure that'stightened up and not a hole. whatever you have, if you do end up with a little holehere under the arm you can, just use the end
to just tighten up whatever looks loose becauseholes under the arms do happen in raglan sweaters. just kind of the way it goes but we can alwaysweave in an end and close it up. you'll want to knit a seam up both of thesleeves and the very last bit of knitting we have to do is the front button band withno buttons in it. you are so close to being finished with thissweater. the last thing we have to do is front button bands or the front bands. they're calledbutton bands on sweaters even if they don't have buttons on them. this sweater does nothave buttons if you wanted to modify yours to have buttons i can give you a link hereto my video on how to make a button hole. i personally think this sweater looks betterhanging open for the kind of sweater that
it is. the pattern tells you exactly how many stitchesto pick up for the front button, but we are going to assume you have just knit this sweaterexactly as long as you want and maybe you added an extra inch or something. we're goingto ignore the number that the pattern tells you to pick up for the button band, becausethis is a lesson that you can take on for a lot of different sweaters that you knit.pretty much every button band that you're going to pick up and knit or really anytimeyou're going to pick up horizontal stitches from vertical knitting. it will make more sense once i show you, let'stake a look. here's my tiny sweater again.
the front button bands are here and here,and because we are attaching knitting going this direction to knitting going this directionyou can't just pick up and knit one for one. i'm going to show you a formula for pickingup the knitting that works on just about everything. i think that it's kind of ideal. this technique is, like i said, called pickup and knit you're going to want to do this with your smaller needle size. you're goingto want to start with the right side of the work facing you. start by putting you needleinto the very edge stitch, as close to the edge as you can possibly get because up herearound the neckline we want it to be as smooth and straight as possible. then take your yarnand kind of flop it over and put that loop
on the needle and pull it through. basicallywhat we're doing is we're knitting with just one needle right now. then when you look at your work you'll seethat these edge stitches are a series of v's and even if they're not super clear they'rethere and you can see them. just get yourself into some good light, put on your glasses,whatever it takes, you'll see them. you want to go under both legs of the v with your needleso we have a good strong pick up. i picked up that edge stitch, i'm going to put my needleunder both legs of the v, wrap it and pull it through on the next stitch. do it on thenext, did i miss one there? i did not. the next stitch, so i have three stitchespicked up here. the amazing formula that i'm
sharing with you is pick up three, skip one,pick up three, skip one. it ends up working out for just about everything you knit butif you notice that it's not working out you can always just start over again with differentnumbers. i picked up three, i'll skip the next one, pick up and knit one, two, three,skip the next one. skip the next one. skip the next one. now, the most important thing when you'repicking up and knitting is that you want to make sure that you don't ever pick up furtherinto the work or pick up less than two legs of the v as you're doing this. you can see here this is my edge right hereand everything looks really even. i haven't
strayed from where i'm trying to pick up.it looks really good. if i did pick up too far, i'm going to do that for a few stitches.i will intentionally mess up for a few stitches. this is the edge that i was following firstand it disappeared because i picked up further into the work and it messed up my perfectline, i'll take those three stitches out. you'll pick up and knit all the way acrossand really what you want to aim for is a multiple of two and not a multiple of four. you wantto start with two knit stitches and end with two knit stitches, which is going to looknicer than starting and ending with purl stitches or having purl stitches on either side. it'sa multiple of four plus two and what you'll do is just get kind of close to where you'realmost at the end, count your stitches, and
then space them out as necessary to get yourselfto a multiple of four plus two. again, this is just one of the finer pointsof knitting it's not. your sweater's not going to be a failure if it doesn't work out thatway but it does end up looking nicer. you'll pick up all these stitches and then turn yourwork and staring in two by two rib with purl two, then knit two, purl two, knit two, allthe way across and you should end with purl two if you've picked up a multiple of fourplus two. well, that is everything. you're of coursegoing to knit a button band on each side and then when the sweater is completely finishedyou'll bind off and you'll weave in all of your ends. the last thing you want to do isto wash and block it and i'll tell you the
way i did that is i washed the sweater ongentle with a little bit of wool soap in the washing machine, let it spin out so it wasalmost dry really after it finished spinning. i set it out flat to dry because the stitchesend up kind of being lumpy and bumpy right after you finish knitting it but blockingreally takes care of this. set it out flat to dry and patted it out and squared out thecorners and made everything look good. it dried, the wool-ease yarn dries in almostno time and here i am. i have my finished sweater. it was that easy. that's everything you need, good luck on thesweater and many thanks to lion brand for bringing us this free pattern. good luck.