( Dorothy wrote to me on ravelry with a problem getting the ” shape armhole and front neck” decreases to work…)

I’m guessing you’re making the 34″ size if you’re getting to 16 stitches?

That’s not an easy one is it! I work this stuff out by writing the row numbers on paper 1 to 10. Then I note the Armhole increases above each row number and the neck increases below.
So row 1 has “-2″ above it and “-1″ below it. I then work out how many stitches I should have at the end of each row. For row one I started with 24 stitches, minus 3 stitches in total – I have 21 st left. When it’s complicated I get the coloured pencils out too! It’s easer to do on paper than knit it every time for me anyway.

Here’s how it works out.

I’ll number the rows 1 to 10

Start with 24 stitches.

Row 1 Cast off 2 st arm hole edge and dec 1 at neck edge (21 st)

Row 2 no decreases (21 st)

Row 3 Decrease 1 st at armhole edge and 1 st at neck edge (19 st)

Row 4 Decrease 1 st at armhole edge (18 st)

Row 5 decrease 1st neck edge (17 st)

Row 6 no decreases (17st)

Row 7 Decrease 1 st neck edge(16st)

Row 8,9,10 No Decrease

Is that as clear as mud?

I’ll post this on my blog too – might help others!

Susan

I don’t think you’re the first to be baffled by this one!

The thing to get your head around is that you are turning around in the middle of a row. If you just turned and started knitting, you’d end up with a nasty hole. What this technique does is wrap the yarn around the next (unworked ) stitch before you turn around and go back the other way. Think of it a poking the ball of wool between the next two stitches on the needle – obviously there’s not space to do that so you have to jiggle a stitch to the other needle and back again (oh dear, I think I’m making it worse…)

Once you’ve wrapped your stitch there will be an obvious horizontal loop of yarn at the base of the wrapped stitch. To get rid of this, when you find yourself about to kint that stitch you poke the right hand needle up through that loop then into the stitch as normal and knit the two loops together.

That has probably confused the hell out of you !

There’s a really good video of how to do it here
http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/advanced-techniques

(it’s second from bottom) – shows you how to do the wrap and how to work the loop and stitch together. The video does use the continental style and turn the work before wrapping the stitch but it gets the same result. It’s always easier to watch it being done huh?

Are you using the pattern fro the Heartfelt book? If so there’s an explanation on page 91 under the heading “wrap stitch”.

In case you don’t have the book (I know Cherish has been available as a separate pattern), the same text is on Kim Hargreaves site here:-
http://www.kimhargreaves.co.uk/acatalog/Help.html

(she explains it better than me!)

And there’s and explanation in pictures here too
http://www.sweaterscapes.com/shortrok.htm

Persevere – it’s a really useful skill to know.

I hope I’ve helped

Susan