Thursday, October 25, 2007

Knitting Wizards~Need Help

I've reached desperation! I scoured the net and most of the books I own and can't find any information on adding short rows to garter stitch. (Much less to a top down cardi.) All of the instructions I have found have been for st st. I have a pretty small frame and thanks to my pregnancy I have a large bust and really wanted to add some short rows in the bust area. What I have read is that I should begin the wrap and turn one stitch from the side seam (or at least where ours would be in Juliet) and end in the middle of the bust. I'm a DD right now, so I was thinking about doing this one more time (for a total of 4 W & T's). Any suggestions? Thanks so much!
Stacy

3 comments:

Sue Bare said...

Hey Stacy!
I hear your plea for short rows :)
I am a 36F and must add short rows to all my garments.

When I do short rows from the top down, you have to start at the top of the short rows, lets say you want to do 6 total short rows(12 wrapped stitches on each side) starting after 3 on each side. You would start your short row 9 stitches in(6+3), wrap and turn, knit till you come around to the wrapped stitch, pick it up, knit it, then wrap and turn the very next stitch. When the item is open in the middle (like Juliet) you would have to do short row sets seperatly on each side ( I did that for "sahara")
The hardest part is fuguring where to start the short rows. I start about where my nipples rest(can I say nipple here??) about an inch to the side of each nipple because I don't like an "arrow dart" pointing right at my nipple :)

I am a continential knitter and I use the japanese row technique on the purl side
http://nonaknits.typepad.com/nonaknits/2005/04/japanese_short_.html
and a regular wrap and turn on the knit side.

Have a great day!
SuZan

Anonymous said...

I'm a DD and I put 4 sets of short row pairs into my garter st section. I did mine the opposite of sue bare. I started mine one st in from the seam line and the next one was 10st from the first w&t, then the next two pairs were 5st from the previous w&t. Then the next row, I picked them all up in one go. That was for juliet.

I have not started my tree jacket yet.

to figure out how many rows you need, find out the difference in length from your shoulder to waist at the back and front and subtract. The difference is the number of inches you need. Then measure how many rows you have of garter st per inch. multiply this number by the length difference. this gives you the total number of rows in your short rows.

Next try on the top to determine where to place markers for the short rows. place one at each side seam and then place one on each side of your breast points a little bit towards the side seam.

The rest of it should work up the way the books tell you to.

If you need more assistance, message me on my blog and I will try to help.

Sue Bare said...

Another helpful book for "boob gals" on short rows is "Big Girl Knits" by Jillian and Amy singer
(pssst...You can go to your local library and check out the book)
SuZan