Back to Front

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with Ms Vreeland on this, nor do I think it would hold true for the hoodie, but since we're finally going talk about the back and front pieces of the Hoods Up! project, I thought a quote about backs and fronts of sweaters would not be amiss.

Pictured below are my back and front pieces, unblocked obviously, so apologies for the curled state of the pieces.  The front pieces are really just the back knit in two halves, so the discussion below will apply to all pieces.

The main technique used in the back and front pieces that may be unfamiliar to some is short-row or sloped decreasing.  This is used at the underarms and shoulders to avoid the "stepped" cast off, and makes a smooth curve or slope that makes for better seaming in these areas.  In the picture below you can see a close up of the underarm of my hoodie, and see that the slope is gradual and smooth.

In Susan Guagliumi's book, Hand Knits by Machine, she describes short row decreasing as follows:  "Placing needles into HP acts like decreasing in that the row length gets shorter and shorter while the stitches themselves remain live and available.....and can be bound off or scrapped off as a group."  For more discussion on how to bind off the stitches (at the underarm) see my previous post here.

Below is a closer picture of the shoulder of my hoodie.  Note that the shoulder stitches are not bound off like the underarm.  Instead, once all of the hold "decreases" are completed to achieve the slope, one final row is knit with hold cancelled and then the shoulder is scrapped off.  This will make rehanging the shoulders for seaming much easier and much neater.

Another resource for more information on short rows is Regine Faust's book, Fashion Knit Course Outline for Hand Knitting Machines.  I think this book is long out of print, but you might be able to find it at the library or a second hand source.  Hopefully for less than the price that the Amazon link quotes.

I've also already mentioned in a previous post Mary Anne's recent book The Handbook for Manual Machine Knitters as another great resource.  And for those of us who are more visual learners, YouTube is a terrific resource to view techniques in action.  Diana Sullivan has a large number of machine knit how-to videos on her YouTube channel here, and there is a link to her blog on the sidebar to the right under "Links we Like".

We found it helped our understanding immensely to practice on a swatch, as I described in my last post, and encourage you to do the same.  Let us know how you're making out, or if you have questions, or other resources or links to share.

Next up will be the sleeves!

Nancy