capping the sleeves

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Titles are hard, man.  I've never been good at them.

Anyhoo. Let's delve a bit deeper into Sans Serif, and look at the magic of top down sleeve caps.  It's a fucking wonder of knitting and I love them so. 

I first encountered the basics of a top-down, set-in sleeve in knitwear in Barbara Walker's badass Knitting from the Top (affiliate link).  The idea is that instead of knitting the sleeve separately and sewing it into the armscye (or armhole), which is fiddly work and requires easing one curve of a slightly different shape and different length into another curve.  It's not the easiest thing to do if you don't have sewing experience, which I do, and even then, it's still not the easiest thing to do.

But knitting a sleeve into the armhole from the top down allows for a firm but flexible seam that won't pop with the movement of the arm, and uses knitting's unique properties beautifully.  

Essentially, you pick up stitches around the armsyce and then use short rows--where you work back and forth on a small amount of the stitches--to create the curve of the sleeve cap that goes over the shoulder and covers the top of the arm.  

Elizabeth Doherty took this and refined it--specifically the proportions of picking up stitches and the short rows--in her book Top Down: Reimagining Set in Sleeve Design.  

I'm very impressed not only with her written instructions on how to create a top down set in sleeve, but also on how to ADJUST and ALTER a top down set in sleeve.  It's very clear, and wonderfully written. 

picking up stitches along the armscye (armhole)

After marking the center of the underarm stitches and the shoulder seam with removable split ring markers (or yarn, when I lost one of the little buggers), I picked up stitches along the armhole, in the ratio directed by the pattern, and put in additional markers to note where the ratios changed (which handily notes where the short rows begin).

short rows beginning to form the wedge at the top of the sleeve cap

See that white marker? This is the first sleeve, and where I was smart enough to realize that leaving the markers in (instead of removing them as noted in the pattern) would be super handy to note where the short rows begin.  I got cocky and took them out on the second sleeve, messed the bugger up and had to rip it out and redo it. 

I love short rows--they make a little wedge of fabric that over this curved armscye turns the corner of your shoulder.  

Beginning the short rows--about 3 or 4 short rows worked. Note the wrapped stitch, 6 stitches in from the tip of the right hand needle 

inside the sleeve cap in progress, working back across the inside short rows.  That length of blue yarn is the marker I used to note where the short rows began on the picked up stitches

working back along the inside, with a nice shot of the yarn marker where I lost the split ring somewhere in the couch. 

nearly completed short rows.  leaving the wraps intact (instead of picking them up as you work across the final rows) leaves a tidy vertical line. 

The thing with short rows is that if you just go back and forth in your knitting, you wind up with holes.  So you need a method to close up those holes--wrapping the next stitch with the working yarn is the most common way to do it, but it's not always the most elegant. My recent discovery is German short rows, which are NOT wrapped, but a different technique.  If I'm doing short rows to shape a shoulder or otherwise shape my knitting, I go with this. 

BUT: Because this is a sleeve, wrapping is better.  It actually serves a decorative function and makes for a cleaner line--so long as you don't work the wraps when you come to them.  See the pic above? Nice and tidy. 

(also, I wonder what I was watching on tv?)

coming to the end of the first complete round, right at the junction of the underarm and the sleeve cap

And this is where I came to the end of the short row section, at the transition from the picked up stitches from the body, to the picked up stitches at the underarms.  At this point, I worked around a few more rounds, then set the stitches aside on a holder to work on the body.  

 

Sans Serif

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SANS SERIF, BY ELIZABETH DOHERTY FROM QUINCE AND CO'S TOP DOWN: REIMAGINING SET IN SLEEVE DESIGN

SANS SERIF, BY ELIZABETH DOHERTY FROM QUINCE AND CO'S TOP DOWN: REIMAGINING SET IN SLEEVE DESIGN

Swatchin'.  Size 8, size 7, and size 6.  Went with the 8.

Did I just pick it because of the name? Maybe. I do love a good sans serif font, though JBB has also been on the receiving end of my rants about bad sans serif fonts, or poorly utilized ones (a thin and thready knock out white sans serif used in an easy-to-read? COME ON PEOPLE).  But this sweater hits all my requirements, and reading through the pattern and book, it's extremely well written and clear.  Plus I swatched and got gauge DEAD ON--even row gauge which never ever happens.  

So armed with the thought of not modifying a pattern save for length and dropping the waist shaping to push it slightly A-line in shape, I started up.  And promptly decided to modify the sizing slightly.  This pattern is sized by shoulder width measurement, which is actually genius as that's the better way to fit a set-in-sleeve pattern, but also potentially annoying in that it might require additional modifications to sizing to best fit the bust and arm circumference.  The shoulder size that works for me would have a bust measurement with zero-to-negative ease.  This isn't always a concern, and sometimes would be desirable, but since I wanted this shape to be slightly A-line, and it's a worsted weight cardigan, and will be worn over other clothes, I wanted more ease. Zero ease could have been doable, but I didn't love the way the fabric of my swatch looked stretched slightly.  Which means adding a bit of space to the bust, without messing with the armhole shaping/length.

I'm an experienced knitter, and have some background in sewing (thanks to my mom the seamstress!), so this kind of adjustment is not necessarily a problem, but it would take a bit of time for me to sit down and figure it all out, and I'd probably have to break out the reference books (oh, no, I have to consult knitting books, whatever will I do.  Pfft. I love that shit). A less experienced knitter might be lost and wind up with something ill fitting . . .  if it weren't for the great instructions in the book.  Elizabeth Doherty walks you through all the ways to adapt and change the pattern for a slight bust adjustment, a major bust adjustment, tweaking the depth of the armhole, the circ of the arm at the bicep.  Really useful and good stuff!  My go-to top-down book has always been Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top (affiliate link), but Top Down expands on Walker, and surpasses the fitting reference with her finessing of details.  (Not to take anything away from Barbara Walker who is a genius and a badass feminist scholar, knitting expert, and wrote the Little House Cookbook. I love her and want to be her.)

the back, in progress, with all my notes. 

I went through the entire pattern, on paper, and not only circled the numbers for the size I was making, but also added in additional notes based on the instructions for revising the fit, and tweaked the stitch count numbers for the rows as necessary.  This alone took about an hour, but it was time well worth spending.  An hour at the desk to rewrite and revise the directions is about 6 hours less time frustrated on the couch trying to figure out where you messed up and why. <-- Learned from experience on that one. 

So I added an inch to the bust measurement, and tweaked the armhole shaping to start a few rows earlier (on row 30, rather than row 34).  Then after working the back part of the bodice, when I started on the fronts, I realized that I wanted to raise the neck a bit as well, to better mimic the sweater I'm attempting to replace and perfect.  I ripped back a bit from where I was, then started the shaping 8 rows earlier (on row 22, instead of row 30).  

I've joined the underarms, and am at the body part.  I think once this ball of yarn is out, I might do the sleeve caps, while it's still a manageable thing to whip around. I still have to decide if I'm including the pockets--maybe?--and what buttons to use.  

I do love the top down approach, the first, tricky, part goes SO fast, and then it's just nice mindless stockinette for a while.  Love.

Once again, this pattern/book is SO WELL WRITTEN. Kudos to Elizabeth Doherty and the team at Quince and Co.