As your skills grow and you gain confidence, you’ll want to try knitting something more ambitious. Creating hand knits gives you the choice of style and color so your garments are unique.
UNDERSTANDING THE INSTRUCTIONS
Many of the knits in this book are very simple; but when you’ve chosen a project, read through the instructions before you start so you’ll be sure you can cope with all the techniques needed. Here’s a quick rundown of the things to look for.
Sizes
There’s no need for wraps, scarves, and other accessories to be sized, but most garments are offered in a range of sizes. The smallest size is given first, followed by the other sizes in square brackets, separated by colons. Where only one figure is given, it applies to all of the sizes. The amount of movement room, or ease, allowed depends on the fit of the design. Some of the garments are intended to be close fitting; others are generously sized. To find the size that’s right for you, check for your bust size in the “To fit” measurements, then look at the corresponding figures given for the actual measurements of the garment. If in doubt about which size to make, compare the measurements with those of an existing garment that you like. If you want a tighter or looser fit, simply follow the instructions for a smaller or larger size.
You will need
Some of the projects use leftover, or even improvised yarn, but where a certain brand is specified, please use it! All the designs have been created with the particular qualities of the chosen yarn in mind. If you use a different yarn, you won’t get the same effect. You can sometimes substitute one yarn for another, but make sure that you can achieve the same gauge.
Gauge
The gauge of a piece of knitting is the number of stitches and rows produced over a given measurement. In order for the knitted item to be the correct size, the knitter must achieve the same gauge as the designer of the project did. The recommended needle size is the size that was used to make the original item and most knitters will get the gauge given using this size. Please, please check your gauge! Start with the recommended needle size and knit up a swatch, casting on slightly more stitches and working a few more rows than given, since the edge stitches will curl or distort.
Count and mark off the correct number of stitches and rows, avoiding the edges. If your marked stitches and rows measure less than they should, your knitting is too tight and the garment will be too small, so try again using larger needles. If they measure more, your knitting is too loose and the garment will be too big; try again using smaller needles.
Measuring stitches and rows
Count off the number of stitches and rows given as the specified gauge and mark these off with pins, then measure between the pins.
All the abbreviations you need to know for each item are given at the beginning of the instructions. Most abbreviations are very easy to remember, such as k for “knit” and p for “purl.” Others look more complex but make sense once you realize that they actually explain a series of actions, such as sk2po for “slip 1 stitch, knit 2 stitches together, pass the slipped stitch over.” Square brackets are used to show how many times a series of stitches or actions should be worked. Asterisks indicate where to repeat instructions or which part of the instructions to work again.
FINISHING
PICKING UP STITCHES
The edges of a garment are often finished by working into the edge stitches—either knitting or purling—and continuing the work on the picked-up stitches. The needle can be inserted into stitches or row ends, and the edge worked into can be straight or curved. For a neat finish, the trick is to place the needle consistently either into or between stitches along a row or 1 stitch in from the edge along row ends.
Picking up from row ends
Join the yarn and insert the needle one stitch in from the edge, take the yarn around the needle, and pull a loop through to make a stitch. If you need to pick up fewer stitches than there are row ends, mark the edge into quarters, divide the number of stitches to be picked up into four, and pick up the same number from each section so you can be sure your stitches are spaced evenly.
