Home › Blogs › PaulJMC's blog

Seed Stitch increase - HELP!!

PaulJMC's picture
Wed, 2011-06-29 17:40 — PaulJMC

Ok gents

Need your help. I am thinking about a jumper in seed stitch, knitted in the round and am wondering how the hell to increase in the pattern - I can't think of how to do this without a double up.

Any help welcome - thanks

Paul

Comments

Tue, 2011-07-05 11:05 — davidUK
davidUK's picture

I've just been working on

I've just been working on seed stitch and found the best way to increase or decrease is one stitch either side of a central stitch so you doing the inc/dec in pairs.
If it's a sweater, the main increases are going to be the underarm seam. What about keep 3 stitches in stocking stitch at the underarm and increasing either side of them like Elizabeth Zimmerman recommends for sweaters in the round. You'd end up with a seam which could be a design feature and you could do one up teh sides as well...

Hope life is good with you

All the best

David

Fri, 2011-07-01 15:53 — raydio
raydio's picture

You're asking about the side

You're asking about the side increases and sleeve length increases, right?

I would just make both increases at the seamline. I'd have one or two plain K sts at each seam. I'd make the "first" increase (the back of your cardi) at the end of the round and the second (front) at the beginning of the round, this will help to avoid any more emphasis of the jog at the start.

The seam sts will syc up with the pattern, but that's the same with moss st and other patterns with Ks and Ps with a seam st.

If you don't want the St st "fake seam", at the start of the round, I would lift the joining yarn and do a K1, P1 in it (or you could try P1, K1-- haven't tried to see if that helps but you could experiment) and follow the established pattern thereafter.

The seed pattern would be maintained and the "jog" will help to disguise the action, but it will show a little bit anyway. I don't know how that can be minimised, but it really doesn't show under the arms and down the sides so much and the seed stitch helps it not show so much.

Thu, 2011-06-30 20:15 — rmbm612
rmbm612's picture

Maybe I didn't make my

Maybe I didn't make my directions clear. I did knit the waist ribbing and the body of the sweater in the round up to the armhole. I then knit the front of the sweater up to the shoulder and then the back of the sweater, bound off the shoulders with 3 needles, ribbed the neck, and then started the sleeves from the armhole down to the cuffs. You could certainly do the entire body in the round and incorporate steeks for the armholes and the neck line. You mentioned you wanted to have a v-neck. I've tried steeking the neck line but found I wasted a lot of energy and yarn if the v-neck plunges to even the nipple line. It for that reason I prefer to knit to the armhole, put the back stitches on a spare circular needle and work the front flat then put the shoulder stitches on holders or short circulars and then knit the back. Hope this clarifies my previous post. Best of luck with your project.

Thu, 2011-06-30 15:51 — Joe-in Wyoming
Joe-in Wyoming's picture

One way to increase seed

One way to increase seed stitch in the round is to do a "Knit in the front and back" of a stitch. I do that for a seed stitch based square I knit large for an afghan/lap robe. It may mean a bit of experimenting for rounds, but is easily adapted to piece knitting. Hope it works out okay for you. -- Books, knitting, cats, fountain pens...Life is Good.

Thu, 2011-06-30 01:31 — PaulJMC
PaulJMC's picture

Thanks mate, very helpful.

Thanks mate, very helpful. I was thinking of doing the whole thing in seed stitch as I like the look of it (think it will really suit the Alpaca I have in my stash). The cuff, band and neck are all planning on being 2 x2 rib. I want a v-neck too.

I was planning on knitting it in the round but after you comments I am now thinking that maybe flat will be better??

Thanks again.

Thu, 2011-06-30 01:31 — PaulJMC
PaulJMC's picture

Thanks mate, very helpful.

Thanks mate, very helpful. I was thinking of doing the whole thing in seed stitch as I like the look of it (think it will really suit the Alpaca I have in my stash). The cuff, band and neck are all planning on being 2 x2 rib. I want a v-neck too.

I was planning on knitting it in the round but after you comments I am now thinking that maybe flat will be better??

Thanks again.

Wed, 2011-06-29 19:57 — rmbm612
rmbm612's picture

Is the entire sweater going

Is the entire sweater going to be seed stitching? Any ribbing around cuffs, waist, and neck? I changed my favorite jumper pattern and did seed stitch on the yoke, but could have started above the ribbing. Once the increases for the body were done it was straight up to the beginning of the armholes. I chose to do the front and back separately so didn't have to worry about increasing and decreasing for the neck wasn't an issue. As for the sleeves , I joined the shoulder seams with a 3 needle bind off, picked up stitched around the arm hole and started seed stitching my way to the cuff. I added a fake seam stitch (thank you EZ for the idea) purled down to the cuff and did paired decreases on either side of the one constant purl seam stitch. That fake seam stitch could be used from the waist to the armhole if you wanted. I choose not to do the entire body and the entire sleeves in seed stitch only because it sounded to tedious and monotonous.