What have you knit? The thing about knitting sweaters, versus knitting anything else, is this: it’s exactly the same, only bigger.
There really are very few things you can do in knitting – cast on, cast off, knit, purl, increase, decrease are the most common ones (and the buttonholing method above is really just an increase on one row followed by a decrease on the next). There are a few other things you can do that are sort of different like twisting and cabling stitches or changing colours or floating colours. But those aren’t things that magically appear just because you’ve chosen to make a sweater – if it’s a sweater without cabling, no cabling will be included.
So, really, if you can knit and purl and increase and decrease – all of which you can probably do, if you’ve ever knit anything that wasn’t a rectangle – you can knit a sweater. It’ll just take longer. Knitting children’s or baby’s sweaters can be a good start, since they require the same basic skills as adult sweaters but don’t take much longer than scarves.
my beginning knitting class had us, as the last project, knit a purse thingy. so we learned the “yo” button hole and the whip stitch to put the sides together. the purse thingy was an envelope type thingy.
face cloth and hat were the other nifty things we made.
Just wanted to give you a big ‘thumbs up’ on your sweater!
I knitted my very first sweater and gave it to my husband for Christmas. It was a crew neck, raglan sleeve sweater, knitted in the round. I enjoyed knitting it, even thought there were some issues along the way and parts had to be ripped back. The look on his face when I gave it to him was worth all the hours of work.
The stitch dictionary book will serve you well, as will the knitting site. I used that site to learn how to do the kitchener stitch when finishing the toe of my first sock.
That looks like a good one. I have many knitting books. They’re yummy.
The one(s) I recommended are more about how to do the basics. There are so many ways of increasing and decreasing, for example - and they all look a little different on the finished garment. Likeways all the methods of casting on, the characteristics of yarn, etc. I had a lot to unlearn by the time I got to Maggie’s books - nearly 20 years of doing it, but not happy with the end result. Her books gave me so much confidence.
Sprockets – I’ll undoubtedly look for “your” book as well – but this is totally what I love about needlework. I did needlepoint for, yikes, probably damn close to 20 years, and my favorite projects were about playing around with different kinds of stitches and patterns.
I’m thinking I can go back to scarves for a while, now, trying out some of the easier stitch variations and getting up my confidence – maybe a patchwork afghan where each square is a different stitch? Seriously – what I get off on, totally, is how many different effects you can come up with based on just “knit” and “purl.”
ETA: BTW, where I ended up on the buttonhole issue in the OP – I need to learn the yo technique, obviously – but I think 3/4" buttons would look silly on this sweater, so I think I’ll do cast-off/cast-on buttonholes and get bigger, funkier buttons.
Absolutely, I love that stuff too. I have some books about “Guernsey” sweaters and their traditional construction. I made a nice sweater for my husband using these techniques and all the wonderful patterns that use only knit and purl. I think it was fairly important to use a light-colored yarn so the stitches showed up well. I like that all-wool fisherman yarn that Jo-Ann carries. It also takes dye very well, in case anyone is into that.
Shirley , you’ve got to make the Einstein Coat! And the buttonholes on that are just yarn overs. So easy.
But yes, yarn overs are fine button holes and much easier than the bind off in one row, cast on the next method. Never mind the ones where you knit the stitches to be the button hole on waste yarn, push them back on the needle and knit them again in the garment’s yarn,then remove the waste yarn at the end, pick up stitches and knit them in the round once and then bind off. Don’t do that one.
Einstein coat, from Sally Melville’s book “The Knit Stitch”. It’s called the Einstein coat because you feel like a genius when it’s done…
It’s one of those patterns that have entered the realm of online knitting legend, that everyone talks about and they have four million knit-alongs a year for, like the Charlotte’s Web shawl or the kitty-ears hat.
Not only have I made one, but I wear it whenever it’s between 35 and 55 degrees out. It’s a coat that only has two small seams on the sleeves and is all in knit stitch. Not only do I feel like a genius, but when I have it on and am wearing glasses I look like a genius - in other words, like the funky art and design professors at my job.
It’s also called the Einstein coat because it unfolds like the universe while sitting there in your lap getting knit.
If there was ever a confidence booster in knitting, the Einstein coat is it.
