Want to work a seamless set-in sleeve from the top down?  Did that sentence even make sense?

For my Central Park Hoodie, I lengthened the armholes but wasn’t smart enough to just use a larger size’s instructions.  I was then faced with this choice: destroy my brain by trying to figure out the math to make a sleeve cap and then deal with easing and sewing OR work my sleeves top-down with short rows.  Guess which one I chose.

Do you know how to pick up stitches and work short rows?  Then you have all the skills needed for this pattern modification.  For more information on this technique, check out Barbara Walker’s Knitting from the Top or Wendy Bernard’s Custom Knits.  Here are some good tutorials for picking up stitches from Knitty: Picking Up Stitches on a Straight Edge and Picking Up Stitches on a Curved Edge.

It was the short rows that confused me at first.  When you work short rows for a sock heel, you work shorter and shorter rows then longer and longer rows to make a pouch that’s essentially two trapezoids on top of each other like so:

However, the short rows for a sleeve cap are just the second half of the diagram.  You start with a short row and then get longer and longer, picking up wraps as you work over them instead of saving them all for the end.

Now, make a  decision.  Do you want to work the sleeves in the round or do you want to work them flat and then seam them? 

Let’s assume you want to make them in the round first.  Sew the shoulder and side seams for your sweater.  You now have a nice armhole to pick up stitches around.  Starting at the side seam under the arm, pick up and knit stitches evenly around the armhole.  If you haven’t made any modifications to the armhole, then the number of stitches on the sleeve before the sleeve cap shaping starts is the number to pick up.  Make sure that there are the same number of stitches on either side of the side seam.  Use the shoulder seam as the center of the sleeve top.  Place a marker for the beginning of the round.

If you’ve decided to work your sleeves flat, just sew the shoulder seams of your sweater.  Pick up and knit stitches evenly across the armhole.  If you haven’t made any modifications to the armhole, then the number of stitches on the sleeve before the sleeve cap shaping starts is the number to pick up.  Make sure that there are the same number of stitches on either side of the shoulder seam, using that as the center of the sleeve top.

Now for a little math.  Divide the number of stitches on your needle by 3.  Go ahead and round up or down to the nearest even number.  The result is the number of stitches you will need to have at the top of your sleeve cap.  Center this 1/3 on the shoulder seam.  Place markers on either side.

Knitting Flat	Knitting in the Round

Mark the underarm stitches.  If you’re knitting from the bottom up, the underarm stitches are the stitches that have been picked up from the cast off stitches and decrease rows.  Make sure that there are the same number of underarm stitches on either side of the beginning marker (if knitting in the round) or either end of the sleeve cap (if knitting flat).  If you’re knitting from the top down, the underarm stitches begin at the first increase.  Place markers at either end of the underarm stitches.  If you’re knitting in the round, you should have 5 markers.  If you’re knitting flat, you should have 4 markers.

Okay, the set up is finished.  Now, work (in pattern) to the end of the top 1/3 stitches and slip the marker.  Wrap the next stitch and turn.  Work back across the top 1/3 stitches, slip the marker, and wrap the next stitch.  Turn and work back to the first wrapped stitch.  Pick up the wrap and conceal it with your preferred method, then wrap the next stitch.  Turn, work back to the next wrapped stitch.  Pick up the wrap and conceal it, then wrap the next stitch.  Here is an excellent write up of the various ways to conceal a wrapped stitch.

Continue working back and forth this way until you reach the underarm markers, ending on a RS row.  In the round, knit across the underarm stitches and continue around, concealing the last wrapped stitch as you come to it on the RS and then finishing the round.  Flat, work the underarm stitches to the end of the row, then turn and work back, concealing the last wrap as you come to it and continue on to the underarm sts.

Continue the sleeves as laid out by your pattern.  Unless the pattern has top-down sleeves, decrease whenever the pattern says to increase.  Remember that if you have picked up more stitches than the pattern called for to adjust your decreases accordingly.

That’s it!  Not so bad, eh, and no seaming!

Here’s a real world example to make things clearer:

On my CPH, I made my armhole 1” longer than called for.  I knit my sleeves in the round and changed the frequency of the decreases.

Starting at the side seam, I picked up 1 stitch for each cast off stitch or decreased stitch.  This gave me 9 stitches for the first half of the underarm.  I placed a purple marker after the 9 sts and for the beginning of the round. Then I picked up 2 stitches for every 3 rows of knitting until I reached the shoulder seam, which ended up being 35 sts.  I picked up 35 stitches down the other side of the armhole, placed a purple marker, and picked up 9 stitches for the underarm.

This gave me 88 stitches total for my sleeve.  Dividing 88 by 3 gives me 29.33333.  I rounded up to 30.  I want 15 sts on either side of the center of the sleeve top.  I placed blue markers on either side of my sleeve top, which was centered at the shoulder seam.

Since the CPH has cables running down the sleeve, I also placed white markers for the beginning and end of the cable chart, centered on the shoulder seam 6 sts away from the blue markers.

I knit to the purple marker (the top 1/3 of my stitches,) slipped the purple marker, knit 6, then worked the sleeve cables between the white markers, knit 6, slipped the purple marker, wrapped the next stitch and turned.

I purled back to the cable, worked the cable between the white markers, purled to the purple marker, wrapped the next stitch and turned.

Knitted to the cable, worked the cable, knitted to the wrapped stitch, concealed the wrap, then wrapped the next stitch and turned.

Purled to the cable, worked the cable, purled to the wrapped stitch, concealed the wrap, then wrapped the next stitch and turned.

Once the short rows were finished, I worked the rest of the sleeve in the round. 

Well, it’s that time of year again.  Time for my yearly trek back to Virginia and gorge myself on tasty turkey, gravy, and apple pie.  Yum yum.  The downside, of course, is that it’s a five-hour flight to said turkey.  Not to mention the time waiting for the flight in the airport and on the tarmac.  So there has been careful planning about projects, as you can imagine.

First up, my plain sock for knitting while talking to family.  This was yarn that I dyed almost a year ago but never used because I thought it was too plain.  Recently, I re-skeined it and over-dyed part of it to make it have stripes.  The purple is the new part.  I also have some hand-dyed light brown for the cuffs, heels, and toes.  No matter how I take pictures of this yarn, the color never turns out right.  Trust me that the purple is more… purple in real life.  I’ve learned my lesson, though, and I’m only bringing enough to make one sock on the trip.  That should guarantee that I finish the sock, right?

Next, I’m making a scarf for someone for Christmas. Malabrigo Worsted, in Loro barranquero.

This beautiful yarn will be a pair of cabled socks.  The Yarn Hollow Squish, Teal on Teal.

This merino/bamboo fiber that I bought at Weaving Works.  Only about an ounce; I just wanted enough to tell how the blend spins.  I dyed it myself with food coloring.  I’ll be spinning it on my new Mt. Baker spindle!

And one last-minute addition, Shibui Knits Baby Alpaca DK in Spruce.  Project to be determined soon.

I’m not worried that I’m not bringing enough yarn.  I am worried, however, that the projects I have won’t be complicated enough to keep my interest.  After all, the flight back is an hour longer… Maybe I should bring a stitch dictionary just in case…

I have officially finished all the knitting on the Central Park Hoodie!

I dunked the whole thing in the bathtub yesterday with some Kookaburra and pinned it out to dry.  I even managed to coax another inch or so of width out of the body.  I did decide to redo the pockets.  I tore out all the lining and lengthened the steek.  This time I was much more careful as I sewed down the front; I think I managed to leave some flexibility in there.  All that’s left to do now is to sew in the zipper when it’s dry!

An artsy shot, just because I can:

It has taken me exactly one year to finish these socks.

Yes, you read that right.  I dyed the yarn and cast on these socks last Thanksgiving.  While working the ribbing, I worried that I would finish the pair before I returned from Virginia.  I worried that I would not have enough sock to keep me occupied.  Now I know, these socks do not look like the overly-complicated knitwear that I normally gravitate towards.  These socks are plain stockinette which is normally not my cup of tea, except that I have mastered the art of the knit stitch without looking which has then led to knitting stockinette while reading.  These socks were meant to be knit while I talked with family and I brought other, more complex, socks to keep me from gnawing my arm off on a six hour plane ride.

I bet you’re trying to figure out how it took me a year to knit one pair of when I fancy myself a professional sock designer.  If it always took me a year to finish a pair of socks, I’d miss a lot of deadlines.  Did I lose them?  Did the needles break?  Did I forget to pack them on a trip?  Did goblins steal them in the night and hold them hostage until I promised them my firstborn?

Here’s the annotated picture of the socks, showing how much of the socks I knit when. 

As you can see, the socks spent most of their year in a strange limbo with one sock mostly finished and the other being cast on and knitted in two months.  These socks when with me pretty much everywhere this year, including New Mexico, a second trip to Virginia, ski trips, Idaho, the Sock Summit, even the theater!  Clearly, they were getting face time with me; I hadn’t forgotten about them but nothing was being knit.  I can’t even blame the yarn.  As much as I hated the way that this yarn looked in the skein (so much so that I didn’t even get a picture of it and apparently didn’t blog about it), I really like the way it knit up.  And it’s in my favorite workhorse yarn, Knit Picks Essential- er, they’re calling it Stroll now I guess.

I have now cast on another pair of stockinette socks with self-dyed stripey yarn in preparation for this Thanksgiving.  I will do my best to finish these in a more timely manner.  Look for a finished picture in June, maybe.

The sleeves on the CPH are taking forever.  Other projects have been dumped.  Much coffee has been drunk.  Despite decreasing every 5th round, the sleeve is not getting any faster to knit.  I may not have found Yarnia, but I have definitely found a black hole.