Monday, June 25, 2007

Tempting sleeve join - thinking out loud

I'm at the point in Tempting where I've knit most of the body and need to join the sleeves, working in the round.

I've done this before using the Ann Norling children's sweaters from the bottom up pattern. Her method goes something like this: The beginning of the round is the back of the sweater. Knit x number of stitches until you get to where the sleeve begins. Place a marker. Slide y number of stitches to a stitch marker. Take the sleeve and knit from the DPNs or stitch holders onto the circular needle. Leave y number of stitches onto the holder (the same amount as you left on the body). Those two sets of stitches will be grafted together or joined by a three needle bind off later. Place another marker. Continue to knit across the front, then repeat the process when you get to the other sleeve point.

In Tempting, though, Jenna Adorno gives these instructions:
Place next 12 [14,16,18,20] sts on waste yarn, work across 60[66, 74, 82, 88] sts, place next 12 [14,16,18,20] sts on waste yarn, work to end of rnd. Set aside. Do not break yarn.

[Sleeve instructions, blah, blah, blah]

Join Sleeves to Body
NOTE: Read through this entire step before beginning.Using circular needle and ball of yarn attached to body, and working in 2x2 rib as set, work across 40[46, 52, 58, 64] sts of one sleeve, work across 60[66, 74, 82, 88] sts of front of body, work across 40[46, 52, 58, 64] sts of second sleeve, work across 60[66, 74, 82, 88] sts of back of body.There should now be 200[224, 252, 280, 304] sts on the circular needle, and the sleeves and body should be joined, ready for the yoke to be worked. At the underarms, the sts on waste yarn from the body and from the sleeves will be opposite each other. These sts will be joined later on.

This makes no sense to me, in part because I tried to work it out last night at 10:30 while watching Munich (not exactly an uplifting or subtle film - were you all aware that terrorism is wrong, no matter who does it? Thanks, Stephen Spielberg!), and in part because I'm so used to Ann Norling's method. Adorno's method, as far as I can tell, leaves long floats across the armpit? Do you knit the stitches before putting them on the waste yarn? If you don't, how do not join the sweater inadvertently before adding the sleeves?

If you've made this before, help! Is there a reason to this madness, or will this work using the method I know?

Okay, knitting-related things to be grumpy about:
  • Everyone is on Ravelry except me! I feel like I'm looking in, my face pressed up against the glass. Let me in!
  • It's June 25. Do you know where your CotLin is? Apparently Knitpicks doesn't either. New date? July 11.

3 comments:

LisaBe said...

use ann norling's method. in tempting ii, jenna seemed to try to fix the long float thing, but ann's method sounds better altogether. i'll ask you for that if i ever make another sweater like tempting again. i thought that sleeve construction was awful--lots of potential, but executed awfully.

Amanda said...

Why not just do those two steps at the same time... like when you get to the underarm stitches, put them on the waste yarn and grab your sleeve in progress and knit across it... then knit across the front. When you get to the next sleeve do the same (place underarm stitches on holder/knit across sleeve) and then knit the back. That should eliminate the floats.

PS. I am on Ravelry... neaner! neaner! neaner! I only brag because I am never the 'cool' kid. Let me tell you, totally worth the wait. Plus it seems like the couple who are building it are really trying hard to add capacity and work out the bugs.

Amy said...

All I can tell you is that Blaze is constructed similarly and I followed Jenna's instructions for that and I didn't have any floats. I will also say that I didn't understand how her directions were going to work until I actually did it.

That probably didn't help at all...