I may have already mentioned a few times that I like retro clothing. So I thought the Knitting it old school knitting book would be just my cup of tea. It contains some great-looking vintage patterns (although, to be honest, not as many as I would have hoped).
The pattern that I really wanted to make was the saucy convertible, which is the top displayed on the cover of the book.
I’m still working on it, and it’s not going as fast as I had hoped. But here are some tips and hints that may already help you if you are experiencing some difficulties with the pattern (as I did).
- All pieces except the yoke are worked in stockinette stitch. I know, it couldn’t get any simpler than this, but the pattern never mentions the stockinette stitch. You can see it in the pictures, but I got a bit confused in the beginning because it wasn’t mentioned. And I don’t like getting confused, especially not in the beginning of a pattern.
- Shaping the waist went fine, but when I started to do M1R to shape the bust, I ended up with holes.
Apparently, I misunderstood the explanation for M1R in the book: I did something wrong when slipping the picked up stitch to the left needle. To avoid this mistake and to do M1R correctly: with your left needle, pick up the bar from back to front. Knit this picked up bar/stitch as you would knit any other stitch.
- Short rows for the bust darts: I didn’t know that the technique of wrapping and turning ends you up with short rows. The pattern uses both terms, but it doesn’t clearly mention that both are linked, and it got me confused. But what confused me most of all is that the pattern doesn’t mention that you need to pick up your wrapped stitches. It just tells you to work evenly. Here’s what you got to do to pick them up:
- On the RS: Knit until you reach the first wrapped stitch. With your right needle, pick up the wrap from front to back, i.e. from left to right. With the wrap on your right needle, slip the stitch that is wrapped onto your right needle, as if to knit. Knit both the wrap and the wrapped stitch together through the back loop. Repeat for all wrapped stitches until the end of the row.
- On the WS: Purl until you reach the first wrapped stitch. With your right needle, pick up the wrap from back to front, i.e. from right to left. Slip the wrap to the left needle. Purl the wrap together with the wrapped stitch. Repeat for all wrapped stitches until the end of the row.
- Grafting sleeves to the body: I’m not that familiar with grafting, aka kitchener stitch. And once again, I didn’t quite get the instructions in the pattern. I can’t remember exactly how I did it, so I’m sorry if this bullet doesn’t really offer the help you are looking for. Since I am making the medium size shirt, I needed 10 stitches of the sleeve and 10 stitches of the body. Of course, don’t pick just any 10 stitches: you need 5 stitches on one side of the seam, and 5 stitches on the other side. I put these stitches on separate needles: the sleeve stitches on one needle and the body stitches on the other. You have to make sure that the right side of your work is on the outside. So you have the body in front of you with the right side facing you and your needle pointing to the right. To get the sleeve right, you need to hold it on the wrong side of your body, so it’s the furthest away from you. This means it will be on top of the needle holding the body stitches; The needle with the sleeve stitches should also be pointing right. Once you have grafted the stitches you will be able to flip the sleeve over so that it’s in front of you in front of the body. I hope this makes sense. If not, ask, maybe your questions will help me to explain it better.
- Yoke: It starts as just a simple rib pattern. So on the RS you slip one knit wise and then k1, p1 until the end. The last stitch will be a knit stitch, the one you knit together with the body. On the WS, slip one purl wise and then p1, k1 until the end. The last stitch will be a purl stitch. I’m halfway there now with the yoke. I’m very curious about the result!
