Zimmermania

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Weaving

Hi everyone

I'm new to this site - but I'm an avid EZ fan and have knit several seamless sweaters over the last couple of years - I'll post pics of my most recently completed yoke design as soon as I get some good images of it.

I have a question for you all. I love the whole process of making my sweaters seamlessly, and I have finally gotten my measurements down where they fit great. I have one issue that I struggle with though, and that is the underam weaving. Not the weaving itself, but rather that odd little area where all three pieces of knitting come together and form that little gaping hole at the end of the weaving. I have finished it several different ways - but am never completely satisfied with it. Plus - its a stress point in the sweater so when you lift your arms the yarns are always pulling at each other and whatever finishing Ive done becomes more obvious to me. So - how have you all dealt with this little tricky area? Any suggestions would be great!

I'm looking forward to sharing my posts with everybody - and pics of my finished projects!

7 Comments:

  • Some of the gaping for me has been caused by stretched stitches. I make sure to work any looseness in any of the stitches out by pulling the slack up and spreading it across the other stitches in the row. I have also found it useful to sometimes cast on one more or one fewer stitches at the underarm for the sleeve. Kitchener stitching (weaving) works really well when you have stitch counts off by one.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 3:40 PM  

  • Donny, I have this same problem! I do the kitchener, and that part will look fine, but then there are these little holes at either end. I do a really haphazard sort of darning that I'm never completely happy with. Maybe I'll try the above suggestion next time. I also look forward to reading what others say.

    By Blogger earthchick, at 4:25 PM  

  • I found it works to catch up the loop of a stretched stitch and twist it on the needle a couple of times before knitting it. The twisting adds some spring and tightens the gap.
    This worked on the last seamless yoke sweater I did, but is also helpful in doing socks when one is at the point of picking up stitches for the instep.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:05 PM  

  • Weaving in AROUND the underarm edges after grafting across the stitches works very well to close those side gaps. Think of a circular spiral of darning stitches hidden at the backside, but worked from the FRONT, so you can see what you are accomplishing. Start at the very center, grabbing the obvious open spot tightly. You may decide to create a new stitch or two with your darning needle directly OVER the opening, thereby tightening any loose stitches. Then continue darning in a circular motion starting very close to the center, and moving in an ever-widening circle. I make a minumum of 2 spirals and then PULL on the darning yarn to collect all stitches and tighten carefully until you are happy with what you see.

    Claudia at Countrywool

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:11 AM  

  • I recently read that on the joining round where 1 body and 2 sleeves become one sweater that you knit together the sleeve stitch and body stitch at each joining. I did this with the sweater I now have on the needles and it looks good and snug; better than any of the previous ones. Hope this helps.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:27 AM  

  • I 'manufacture' stitches (coming from each direction)into the center of the gap. If you are careful, you can just kitchner them together and the gap disappears entirely. There sometimes just isn't quite enough 'give' there and an extra stitch or two can act as a mini-gusset to relieve the stress a bit.

    By Blogger Karla (ThreadBndr), at 6:34 PM  

  • these are all great ideas! thanks

    By Blogger Donny Guercio, at 6:03 AM  

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