This week, I’ve been sharing my journey knitting with Universal Yarn Deluxe DK in colors Lime Tree and Ice Rustic and the ever so smooth LANTERN MOON Knitting Needles by KNITTER’S PRIDE.
Yesterday, I added a stranded knitting pattern to the bottom edge to echo the yoke and finished knitting the body of the Jay Sweater by Rachel Brockman by adding a decrease row before knitting the ribbed edge. Now it’s time to knit the sleeves.
Knitting with Universal Yarn Deluxe DK in colors Lime Tree and Ice Rustic and the ever so smooth LANTERN MOON Knitting Needles by KNITTER’S PRIDE.
Picking up stitches for the sleeves
Starting at the midpoint of the underarm on the body of the sweater, I picked up and knit 5 stitches, then knit the 66 stitches from the waste yarn. Picking up the last 5 stitches brought me back to center, where I placed the BOR marker. I left a nice long tail when casting on these stitches so I have lots of yarn to fill in any holes resulting from picking up sleeve stitches. Sometimes pattern instructions will ask you to pick up an extra stitch on each side, when casting on sleeve stitches, and then knitting 2 of them together on the following row. This will help, in some cases, to decrease the gaps when starting your sleeve. If that gap is still slightly visible though, having that long tail comes in very handy for a little weaving in the ends. Be careful to follow the path of your knitted stitches as you weave around them, and then pull gently to tighten up any gaps.
But before weaving in the ends, you can see the gaps created by picking up sleeve stitches.
Gaps are created by picking up sleeve stitches.
After a little ‘cosmetic’ weaving, it looks much neater!
No more gap at the sleeve stitches!
Knitting the sleeves
When knitting the sleeves I followed the decreases stipulated in the pattern, but then added one more decrease which brought my stitch count to 56.
When my sleeve measured 13”, I added the same 4-row stranded knitting pattern in Lime Tree and Ice Rustic that I knitted on the bottom edge of the body as I described in yesterday’s post. Be especially vigilant here to keep your stitches spread out on the right-hand needle. A smaller circumference will pose a greater challenge in keeping the stranded pattern nice and loose. Better to err on the side of the stitches being a little loose than too tight so that the pattern will lay flat and be visible. When the stranded knitting is too tight, the pattern will almost disappear.
I didn’t do any final decreases before starting the cuff of the sleeve. It already seemed small enough to create a nice snug fit. I just changed to my LANTERN MOON Destiny Ebony US 5 [3.75mm] circular needles and continued to the 1×1 ribbing for 13 rows, ending with 2 stockinette rows before loosely casting off.
The finished sleeve of the Jay Sweater knit in Deluxe Dk with the stranded knitting pattern to mimic the yoke.
The next most exciting thing about knitting with Universal Yarn Deluxe DK is getting so close to finishing my version of the lovely Jay Sweater! Join me in tomorrow as I complete the finishing touches…sewing in ends, blocking, and trying on the finished sweater!
