Welcome to I’ll Knit (& Spin!) If I want To! I asked y’all to send in some of your questions (from everything from fiber arts, to designing and on!) so I could put together a little video for y’all every Friday doing my best to answer your questions!
1. Hello! I was hoping you could talk about button bands. More specifically, I just finished knitting up my first cabled cardigan and the button band was constructed after knitting the cabled body. I picked up stitches on both sides and knit the length of the body and then after knitting the bands on both sides, the neckband was picked up and knitted. The cardigan turned out great, however the button band is a little wavy when buttoned, even after carefully blocking my garment. I’m looking for tips on ways to make the band more tidy. Thank you!
2. I love your podcast and look forward to the release every Friday! I have made several of your sweater patterns and they are the ones at the top of my hand-knit wardrobe rotation, so thank you! I currently have the worsted weight Harlow hat on my needles with two different souvenier yarns, one from Northern Michigan which is a true worsted weight, and the other from Scotland which is a lighter weight worsted, but the combination is looking great and the brioche is forgiving enough for the yarns to work well together. Anyway, my question is regarding needle length. When the pattern calls for a 16" needle for knitting in the round, what exactly is the 16 inches? The cord length? Cord and needles? I feel like this is a rookie question, but it is bugging me! Thanks for always having such good tips and information!
3. I'm nearly done knitting a top down sweater but have realised I'm not happy with the length and it could use an extra inch above the ribbing. The ribbing is wide and tedious so rather than rib back I'm tempted to perform sweater surgery, cut above the ribbing, add the extra inch, and then graft back together. The problem: my sweater grows a lot with blocking (and has already been blocked) so how do I graft at the correct tension? Do I match my tension to the blocked sts, or try and graft tighter, to allow room for growth when I reblock it?
4. Hi Andrea! I'm almost finished with my first stria cardigan and I'm already planning to make another one. For the second one I want to add some short rows to bring the neck up a little, but I don't know how to do that in the half fisherman's rib that the cardigan is made in. Do you have any tips? Or is this just a bad idea? Thank you in advance!
5 .I feel this is such a silly question but… I am afraid to wear my knits!! I will wear a sweater out and when I get home I take it off because I’m afraid that lounging it in, cooking in it, cleaning in it, or even my cats with ruin it. Help me get over this fear. I would love to have a 100% handmade wardrobe but fear stops me!
