Zimmermania

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Question

Is there any reason why I couldn't knit my raglan sweater from the bottom up, and then when I get to the sleeves, use provisional cast-on and knit on up to the top... THEN go back and knit the sleeves down from the now removed provisional cast-on? Is there something I'm not taking into consideration?

THANKS!

posted by Kivy at 7:03 AM

10 Comments:

  • One thing: if you have a pattern that is directional (i.e., it "points" up or down) and you knit the body of the sweater from the bottom up, and the sleeves from the top down (arm hole or shoulder area down to wrist) you would have your pattern going in two directions. Hope that makes sense. Maybe someone else could explain it better!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 7:33 AM  

  • You could, but Joanne is right, if you're doing colorwork it will look a bit different going top-down vs. bottom-up.
    Do you want to do this because you have limited yarn?? or just for fun?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 8:39 AM  

  • Mostly I just ask because I hate doing the sleeves and don't want to do a stitch more than necessary... if I do them last, I can try them on and get an exact length :)

    By Blogger Kivy, at 9:07 AM  

  • If you arent 100% set on a raglan sleeve, there is another option that is in one of her books~ It's called the "Kangaroo Pouch" sweater,,,,,named this not because it looks like a kangaroo pouch ,but because of the way its worked~

    It has more of a classic set in sleeve appearance.
    The body is worked bottom up but the sleeves are worked top down~ I see this in the book " The Opinionated Knitter" on page 98.

    I wanted to give that particular construction of a sweater a go myself, as I do like the sleeves knit from the top down~
    If you are truly set on a raglan however this would not be what you want.

    By Blogger luv2knit, at 9:32 AM  

  • You can definitely do it that way - but like has already been mentioned, you can't use a directional pattern - plain stockinette would work just fine that way!

    I have seen quite a few online done like this & am definitely going to use this technique on my next one. I HATE doing the sleeves and have three random pieces of sweater, I would much rather get the yoke done perfectly & be so excited to finish that I just zoom right through those sleeves!

    By Blogger Rachael, at 10:23 AM  

  • This comment has been removed by the author.

    By Blogger knititch, at 12:25 PM  

  • This is a cool idea! I may try this next time. I can never seem to get my underarms to look very nice--I end up sewing up holes on each side of my grafts. If I knit the sleeves top down, I can pick up stitches along the cast on edge of the underarm on the body--no kitchenering and no holes. (Hope that made sense.)

    By Blogger Kelley, at 4:02 PM  

  • I did something similar once, knit just the yoke from the bottom up, then picked up stitches in the proper places and knit the sleeves and body downward. (I think it was the saddle shoulder shaping, but really, it's the same general idea.) It worked just fine, but see what others have said about using directional patterns, etc. Regular stockinette, though, works like a charm.

    By Blogger Julie, at 8:54 AM  

  • I haven't done this from the bottom up, but I've done it for top down sweaters (using prov. cast on, instead of a regular cast on) for CIC sweaters. Often I don't have a lot of yarn, so I knit the sleeves until I run out of yarn, and then I'm done. I hate kitchenering, so that's one reason why I do it this way.

    My only word of caution, is it's a pain to knit the sleeves attached to the sweater, as you have to constantly move the whole sweater around, as you go around & around. It's not bad for a kid's sweater, as the sleeves are done so fast... but for an adult sized sweater, I'd get sick of it awfully fast, I think.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 1:12 PM  

  • Anastacia said what I was going to say: I've knit a sweater this way and MAN, those sleeves get so annoying to knit while attached to the sweater! I actually had to throw it in a corner for a week. Oy.

    On the sweater I just finished, I knit both sleeves at the same time, which was a bit slower but made for a better feeling of victory when I was done with both at the same time. Then again, I quite like knitting sleeves anyway.

    By Blogger Eva, at 8:59 AM  

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