Restless Knitter

I don’t have any super duper photo editing software so you’ll have to do a lot of looking at the same picture trying to find what I’m talking about. The schematic is for the back of a sweater in the book I bought, not the one that was used in the class. Also to note here is that nothing I’m going to type here isn’t anything you couldn’t find on the web already. This one is just in my words. And probably half wrong

First take a look at the arrows at the bottom right. One arrow is pointing up, one is down. That’s the direction you are knitting. This would be like knitting the sweater from the bottom up, then going back to the bottom edge, picking up stitches, and knitting the band in the opposite direction. (Not all of them are knit this way, it’s just that this particular pattern has a chart that is used for the bottom band.)

Right above the bottom band are some numbers. The first is 46c, or 46 cm. Interesting to note is that it’s illegal to use measurements like inches and yards in Japan, as I read here. The second number is 115 with a little symbol that reminds me of looking at a bookshelf. That symbol stands for stitches, meaning you are going to start with (cast on) 115 stitches.

Right below that, in the band, it has -1 stitch, and below that 114 sts. Obviously, you are going to decrease one stitch to work the band. Being as I don’t read Japanese I don’t know if it says to use a provisional cast on, but I probably would. Especially since I can see a pic of the sweater and it looks like it would work best.

While we’re on the subject of the band, look at the very bottom right of the picture. There are 3 bold symbols with a line that goes from them to the band. That’s the chart (not displayed here) you use for the band. We’ll call that one Chart A. In the middle, you’ll find the chart symbols for the body of the sweater, which I’ll call Chart B.

NOTE: I have not figured out what the 6 threesymbols in the middle stands for, nor the symbols above the chart symbols. I’ll have to do more digging for those. I did figure out that it’s not 6 repeats.

To the right of the schematic, it shows 32c and 102. The symbol below 102 stands for rows. So we’re supposed to cast on 115 stitches and work Chart B for 102 rows, which should be 32cm. We can also see the bottom band is 2.5 cm for those 10 rows. See, easy.

Here comes the part that can be difficult. Here’s where we start armhole shaping. Look to the left of the armhole on the right where there are rows and columns of numbers. First look at the symbols below the numbers. The first symbol is rows, the second symbol is stitches, the third symbol stands for how many times. (I’ve read that some patterns do this in a different order so you need to double check these.) So 2-3-2= on every 2nd row - decrease 3 stitches - do this 2 times.

so in other words

1. knit
2. decrease 3 sts
3. knit
4. decrease 3 sts

Here’s where you need a little basic knowledge. You have two arms, you have to do this on both sides of the back so rows 1 and 3 are really going to have a little bindoff action going on. You can’t bind off stitches at the end of a row so you are going to have to bind them off at the beginning of the next row. (The question came up in class “So I can decrease however I want?” If you want to do 6 k2togs in the middle of the piece to do armhole shaping, more power to ya.)

Oops, I got a little ahead of myself. First of all, you read these little numbers sections from the bottom up. It’s like a chart. Below the rows and columns of numbers, we see (4%). Okay, it’s not really a % sign but I can’t make the stitch symbol so I’m using %. That means we’re going to start the armhole shaping by binding off 4. If you’re gauge is spot on and you get 32cm at row 102, then you are going to bind off on row 103. You’re also going to bind off 4 on row 104 because remember, you can’t bind off at the end of the row. Here’s the real armhole shaping in rows, following the rows and columns of numbers

• 103: (RS) Bind off 4, work to end of row in pattern (4%)
• 104: (WS) Bind off 4, work to end of row in pattern
• 105: (RS)Bind off 3 (2-3-2 = On 2nd row (from binding off 4), dec 3 sts, do this 2 times)
• 106: Bind off 3
• 107: (RS)Bind off 3 (here’s the 2nd time of the 2-3-2)
• 108: Bind off 3
• 109: (RS)Bind off 2 (2-2-1= On 2nd row, dec 2, 1 time)
• 110: Bind off 2
• 111: (RS)Bind off 1 (2-1-3 = On 2nd row, dec 1, 3 times)
• 112: Bind off 1
• 113: (RS)Bind off 1 (2nd of 3 times)
• 114: Bind off 1
• 115: (RS)Bind off 1 (3rd of 3 times)
• 116: Bind off 1
• 117: Knit (In pattern of course)
• 118: Knit
• 119: (RS)Bind off 1 (4-1-1 = On 4th row, dec 1, 1 time) (this is the 4th row after the last RS bindoff on 115)
• 120: Bind off 1

(How we doin’ so far? Good? Alright, moving on.)

We decreased 16 stitches for the armhole. Look to the right of the armhole. It says (-16 %). We are so good! We decreased the amount that it says we are going to decrease.

To the right of (-16 %), we see that we are going to work on our armhole for 58 rows, or 18cm before we do some more shaping. Above that we see that it’s going to take 6 rows to shape our shoulders, which will be 2 cm. We’ll start it by binding off 4 stitches, then on the 2nd row we’ll bind off 5, and we’ll do that 3 times, totaling 19 stitches. Looking above the shoulder, we see that it’s 19 stitches/7.5cm wide. Shoulders done.

Then there’s the neck. We’re going to take care of the neck over 4 rows/1.5 cm. First we’re going to bind off the middle 39 stitches. Then on the 2nd row, we’ll bind off 3 stitches (each side), 1 times. Here is where I’m making a guess: Above 2-3-1 for the neck, there is 2 rows something. I think that is 2 rows straight. As in bind off 39, row 1 knit, row 2 bind off 3, row 3 and 4 are knit straight. It makes sense to me because the neck is 4 rows deep but I could be wrong. If I were actually making this though, that’s what I’d do. The 4 rows of neck shaping take place within the 6 rows of shoulder shaping. That’s obvious, right? It may be helpful to make a chart of some sort to remind you what shaping takes place on what row.

Top row of numbers is (19 sts) left shoulder (45 sts) neck (19 sts) right shoulder, with the corresponding measurements. Tada! That’s it!

I’ve read that most Japanese patterns are written for one size so you may have to do some math if it’s not your size. The one we were given was actually sized as a medium but I’m not sure if all Habu patterns have sizes, or just some of them. According to Takako, most patterns don’t tell you which cast on to use, which decrease or increase to use, etc. It’s not an exact science. There is no right or wrong way as long as you get the right result. (Uh, within reason. You’ve got a brain, use it.) (Sorry, leftover frustrations from the workshop are rearing their ugly head.) Also, if you can’t get exact gauge, at least get the stitch gauge right. Most of us know that already though, right? All snarkiness aside, these aren’t patterns that you are instructed every move to make.

There are several websites on Japanese knitting, and at least one Yahoo group, that can give you a lot more info. If you don’t have a bookstore with Japanese books near you, you can get them from several US suppliers, Ebay, and both amazon.jp and yesasia.com ship internationally.

Any questions?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 1:40 am and is filed under Knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.