Lily Chin said it first, and since her expert advice inspired and enhanced the series, she must be right! Beginning at the neck, the number of stitches on the front (s), back, and sleeves increase at regular intervals along these lines. For the hips an a-line shape should work well. If rows used in shaping is MORE rows than you calculated when you worked out desired neck depth, youll need to either increase the number of bottom neck stitches or work more rate A rows. But you wouldn't solve this by working right back and forth across between the back raglans. We use cookies to optimize our website and our service. Remember - what we're doing with short rows is leaving some stitches in the front unworked. Whether . It is acceptable to work a few extra rows into the I have a difficult time picking up the neckline where the front increases have been. What about when I get to the next sleeve? how to improvise a top-down sweater Archives - KT's Slow Closet Why? So when I pop in the measurements there is NO WAY that thing fits I enjoy raglan sweater knitting, and I know you will, too. My 6 year old has a chest measurement of 23 (rounding up) and a head measurement of 21! Have a full bust and tum? Lets dive in and check out why you might want to try knitting a raglan style sweater! They dont necessarily need to be read in order but the more you know the better prepared you will be to decide which sweater construction method is best for you. The style of these "lines" can be different depending on the design, but here are some examples of what it looks like this: Arlo & Alice baby/child cardigan In August 2015 I released the book, Dovestone Hills, which coincided with the release of baa ram ewes Dovestone DK yarn. When you're knitting a top-down raglan sweater, you can make raglan increases in many dif. My FO demonstrates the wisdom of her advice (as well as her eye for a stunning cable motif). This is a useful construction that allows you to try on the sweater as you go. If this is your first sweater I recommend starting with the Tilda pattern. PS - many thanks to Anne Marie Hart for technical editing support on this post! The final stitches are then cast-on across the underarm. Reduce the number of bottom neck stitches or work fewer rate A rows. This is the shoulder width, and from the top of the shoulder, half the width will fall the front and half to the back. Beginning at the neckline the sleeve cap expands to become the shoulder of the garment. Its comfy and the style is flattering, if I do say so myself. You can find themhere.Dusty Road and Santa Rosa Plum are both from last summer, and Im still in love with them both :-). Cant thank you enough for this detailed explanation and worksheet. Its typical to leave a stitch on either side of the raglan shaping. Thanks for the tutorial. All of the shaping is the same, only instead of turning away from stitches, youll bind them off. Please confirm you want to block this member. Caelius is the sweater in Dovestone Hills that uses this shoulder construction method. Short Row Shaping at the Back Neck. (This strand is marked in photo #1 with a red line.) Interestingly, in the Crimean War Baron Raglan fought alongside British Army General James Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan, after whom the cardigan sweater is named! Knitters in larger sizes will often need to increase every row, and will need to add more body stitches than sleeve stitches. I've made one sweater so far, and have nearly finished the planning stage of my second. Lisas List: 10 Reasons Knitting Is Better Than Dating, Spurned Gifts: When Knit & Crochet Gifts Went Wrong. critical to the proper fit of any sweater pattern. Stitch gauge information must be completed. Anyway, I can deal with it pretty easily, but it does make it a little more tricky for If you still have rows leftover, you can re-evaluate your neck depth or consider working bind-offs instead. *Membership cannot be purchased with Gift Cards. The shaping of the sweater is based on raglan styling from the top down. This size allows you to get a good measurement If youd like to make a deeper neckline by binding off, you have so many choices! In a traditional raglan, you start with the neck size you want, increase the body and sleeves every second row or round until you get close to the body stitches you want. This will be neck shaping rows. That area - the underarm to the neck - is called the yoke. Weve already covered many fitting tips and techniques in this series, and heres our final suggestion: compound raglan shaping can also refine fit. It increases more rapidly between the neck and shoulders and at the end to curve around the underarm, [with] more gradual [increasing] in the section in between. That code will be available when you purchase the patterns or digital book. You can use Kniterator to DIY your own basic top-down raglan sweater, yoke sweater, camisole, or cowl - all in your size and your gauge. Copyright2023Golden Peak Media. Lisas designs from Knitting Plus are lovely. 3) Each human body follows or ignores a different set of geometrical principles: no two bodies are the same. Expect that at some point in the future. Knitters in small sizes usually need to make more increases for the sleeve than the body, and have to work fewer increases per row. When I get to the other side of the sleeve do I do it in the same order or do I reverse the way they lean? Ive designed an awful lot of top-down raglan sweaters and cardigans. Pittsburgh, PA USA 15102. Focus on Fit: How to Refine Sweater Fit with Compound Raglan Shaping These tutorials and the mention of your Craftsy course have given me more tools and confidence that I may actually make a decent go at making one of these designs! In Melissa Wherles Sigma Tee, she uses dropped stitches along the raglan sleeve shaping. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience.Jean Ritchey. This feature makes it easier to judge the fit and modify accordingly. Welcome back to the Sweater Construction series! If youve been reading this series, all of this information should sound familiar. I was just wondering if you have any thoughts on this matter. Sweaters with raglan shaping have distinctive "seams" between the front (s), back, and sleeves that form diagonal lines running from the neck edge to the base of the armholes. If you turned your work at the same stitch over and over, youd create a vertical line, but you couldnt work the next row. Heres the thing - if youre used to working the same shaping all the way from the neck to the underarm, you may have noticed that creates a very straight line, and fundamentally is making a rectangular pyramid. the top. Raglan Construction - A Look at Top-Down Knitting Techniques In a traditional raglan, you start with the neck size you want, increase the body and sleeves every second row or round until you get close to the body stitches you want. Change the width of the front and back cones, and you affect the sleeve width too. appropriate to the gauge you enter are needed. You also have a stitch count in the shoulder and neck. Working a smaller size and realize the yoke is too shallow? If you havent already, take a minute to check out the other posts in this series. For example, sleeve length can be easily extended or shortened simply by ceasing knitting at the desired point. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('interstitial-ad');}); Save patterns, share updates, and connect with your community. In a word, geometry. Or consider joining my Patreon for member perks. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. You're very welcome. Learn how to knit the easy way, how to knit the raglan armhole shapingHere is the link to my other knitting channelwww.youtube.com/channel/UC7dn1Kn3wCkjERvV3. #7 How to Knit Raglan Shaping, Knitting For Beginners, Sheila - YouTube Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts! If you use some other The raglan sweater style is fun to knit, and I love how the shaping becomes a design element. Short rows cannot accommodate long straight vertical lines. Add in my Rules 3 and 4 from above, and the problem grows. These steps assume you create a crew neck a shallow, round neckline. In a raglan, stitches from the sleeve contribute to neck depth (see illustration below). It starts with a cowl neck, uses short rows to shape the back of the neck and then uses raglan increases on either side of a decorative seam. You save me so much overwhelming hours. Hey, I just came across this while making a search on raglan. For a crew neck, youll want to use two shaping rates to eliminate stitches, so that youre getting rid of stitches faster at the bottom of the neckline. 2) Each human body follows some geometrical principles and ignores others. P.S. The pattern is generated so that you can use any size knitting needle with any weight yarn. Because knitting is a matter of individual abilities How to Knit 4 Different Types of Raglan Increases - YouTube All Rights Reserved. If you work your raglan straight down from the neck, you will have the front of the neck the same height as the back. This gives each section a triangular shape. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('interstitial-ad');}); Save patterns, share updates, and connect with your community. Either print and draw right on, or highlight cells to illustrate your dream shaping. LCx3 - work 6 stitches in a left leaning cable (3 stitches over 3 stitches) LCx2 - work 4 stitches in a left leaning cable (2 stitches over 2 stitches) ssk - slip as if to knit, slip as if to purl, knit the 2 slipped sts together. Because were using short rows, the total rows used must equal neck shaping rows. Hello, thanks for your interesting explanation. That's why top down raglan are the least customizable of all sweaters. Please consider supporting me by purchasing the 100% ad-free PDF with full charts, schematics, and waist shaping formula for this pattern on my Ravelry or ETSY pages. Fortunately, we crocheters and knitters have control over our own garments, and theres no rule demanding a smooth, straight raglan line. The shaping for your raglan will fit best if you mirror this S shape - also called compound shaping. Work decreases more closely at the top and bottom, and less frequently in the middle of the raglan line. Heres the formula: Stitches to shape out / 2 = stitches used in shaping rate A (round this so its an even number), Youll eliminate the remaining stitches one per turn (work right up to the double stitch, then turn your work), Stitches to shape out stitches used in shaping rate A = stitches used in shaping rate B, Rows used in shaping: Rate A + (Rate B *2). As pointed out by April K., this percentage method works best for adult proportions. Several other designers, following Maggie Righettis advice from Sweater Design in Plain English, similarly praise compound shaping and its endless flexibility. Thanks so much for sharing you work, I really appreciate it!!! Everything after that is finessing. You can add an inch or two here easily, and the whole sweater will be wider in the front only. When I made my first sweater from Jennifers book, Id never heard of compound raglans before. Im about to start knitting a top-down raglan sweater in the round with short rows in the back. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. So I guess the percentages are a bit different on little ones. One wonderful thing about raglan sweaters is that due to the method of increasing it is fairly simple to integrate patterns into the yoke and body of the sweater. March 8, 2012 - Lauren. Also the all sizes _inc formula messes up all of my numbers. up from around the armhole. adventurous. The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. This method of FBA can look kind of odd off a body because of how it changes the appearance of the raglan, but it looks just fine on. Lift that stitch up with the left needle (see photo #2). The body and sleeves can be worked separately in pieces that are seamed together or the body and sleeves can be worked in the round to the armholes, then joined and worked in a single piece to the neck. You will need to mentally reckon with yourself that you will at some point have almost an entire sweater in your lap while you are still knitting with it, this will put more weight onto your hands and wrists. The raglan sleeve got its name from Englishman FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, the 1st Baron Raglan, who lost his arm in the Battle of Waterloo. Posted on 27 Sep 10:33. As noted above, the shoulder width creates some space for the neck - equal space in the front and back. On small-busted women, especially those with large upper arms or lower bodies, these same lines can serve to emphasize that disproportion. This might be a good time to talk about the goal of short rows. What Is a Raglan Sleeve in Knitting? - The Spruce Crafts They look a little different at the top because of the final bind-off, but that difference disappears when you work in the round. Thank you! I debated changing the Raglan increases because I generally prefer to have the increase line extend all the way down below the armpit. When Lisa Shroyer discussed armholes that do and dont work for knitters, she noted the figure attributes that can get in the way of raglan love. However, generally, a neckline is more comfortable to wear if the front is a little lower than the back. are different: I love your site, especially the raglan seamless sweater calculator. Youll need to add one more row to resolve all those double stitches, so the formula is: Rows worked in raglan shaping per pattern - neck shaping rows - 1. It is used to suggest a smaller needle size for the ribbing. Short rows keep us from knitting stitches. I am so tired of looking for a pattern that I have in my head with yarn that doesnt seem to match any of their gauges! I would not aim for a highly customized fit in a raglan, but you can certainly get a more body-conscious fit in a raglan than you would a drop-shoulder. The Cable Pattern For Body: Knit the stitch as normal. Divide shoulder width by 2 for starting neck depth. I have to learn a lot!. E.g. A child's proportions Raglan Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Wauw - I'm really impressed and glad to find another excel-fan. Raglan shaping formulas You start with full raglan increases and then move on to alternating body only rows with full raglan increases so that everything fits right at the bottom of the yoke. For a crew neck, this is typically 40 55 % of front neck certain stitches. Whats your favorite sweater style to knitraglan, set-in sleeves, dolman? Crafty Confessions: Do You Make a Gauge Swatch? How do I know where to put them, so that it will fit on me? This was traditionally the most common method of top-down knitting as its very easy to knit. In this video we learn how to use a formula to easily calculate shaping in knitting. The Slopes Pullover and Azure Lake Sweater feature circular-yoke shaping, decorated with seamless patterning. Amy Herzog combines compound shaping with a seamed yoke, so that sleeves and body can be shaped independently of each othershe simply eases the pieces together as she seams, no matter how differently they curve. Front length: 19inch Back length: 20inch Bust: 41 inch (finished and wet blocked) Materials try to match someone else's gauge. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. When I think about it I think Im just following and exaggerating the way the individual stitches lean so it wouldnt matter- when I get to the next sleeve I would do them in the same order. Another option is to eliminate more than two stitches in your first rate A row, which has the added benefit of creating an even more smooth curve. Tip: Not sure how youd like your neckline to look? that which is calculated by this method. To get from raglan depth to yoke depth, you need to add in one-half of the shoulder stitches. The shoulder width is less important as there is no set shoulder width. Double-point needles or circular needles in the sizes What I frequently do instead is space the increases out so increase rows are every other row instead which correct both issues I find. As pointed out by April K., this percentage method works best for adult proportions. and styles, the information on this site is presented without warranty regarding Post your comments or questions here, or to get questions answered, interact with other knitters and find more free stuff, join my students group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/knittingclasses/If you haven't done so already, I hope you'll like my knitting classes page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/knittingclasses To work a raglan from the top down, you would begin at the neck edge and achieve the raglan shaping with increases. Because the raglan lines draw the eye in from the curves of the bust, theyre quite flattering on curvy womenemphasizing the bust while creating a look of feminine narrowness across the shoulders. This creates a wider or narrower seam along the raglan. Thank you so much if you can help! You'll want to add no more than about 5/8" right beneath the collar, and if you need to make up extra length you can work some short rows in the middle of the back too. To illustrate this, here are two swatches, both worked with the exact same shaping rate as suggested above. This is your desired front neck depth. Any ideas for a neat front neck increase? It doesnt always create perfect results, but with a little bit of knowledge, you can easily adjust patterns to suit your body and taste. maybe using some of the increments from the other sweater calculator that goes in sizes :), I am currently knitting your Travelers End pattern and I am loving the cable pattern. The waist shaping formula is exactly the same as above. The front and back views show how shoulders slope downwards quickly near the neck, then more gently until they reach their full width. Knitting In the Round 3 Ways: DPNs, Two Circulars, or Magic Loop? Right after the bust, we decrease dramatically in circumference, then we dont change very much in the mid chest, and then our circumference narrows rapidly from the shoulder to the chest. You can definitely think critically about the instructions you encounter in patterns you follow or you could use it to write your own knitting pattern. This is awesome! By determining desired stitch and row counts, and then determining the number of increases to make, you arrive at a sweater that fits perfectly. Once youve worked those rows, place a stitch marker in the middle of the front stitches (if its odd number of stitches, mark the middle stitch with a locking stitch marker). You can space your turns as far apart or as close together as you like in the same row, but if you want to create a scoop neck, youll need to bind off instead of working short rows. (8 sts inc at raglans, 2 at front neck, per inc row) To correct this, I write my patterns with two rates of increases. These diagonal seams are created by regular decreases that gradually taper the yoke from the underarm width to the neck width. Im not using a pattern, but I guess there has to be some general rule for this. Most body shapes dont increase the size of their upper arms as fast as the bust size increases. Maybe a note on the calculator mentioning that it's not designed for kids? Is it possible to cut the armhole and add a rhombus or some similar piece? Please note: Its going to be a bit more involved for a raglan sweater. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. The 2 wider cones become the garments front and back, while the narrower cones form sleeves. A raglan is a shoulder construction where the sleeves come all the way up to the neck. About the needle size. If you opt for the top down construction of this style of sweater it can easily be tried on by slipping it off the needle and onto some waste yarn or multiple circular needles. Start by eliminating two stitches per turn (if working German Short rows, this means youll work until there is 1 stitch before the double stitch, then turn your work) until half your stitches to shape out are eliminated.