If seeing the words, “Shaping Staying in Pattern” in a knitting pattern makes you want to:
a) cry
b) throw up in your mouth a little
c) wad the pattern up on the floor and stamp on it right before you ceremoniously light it on fire
I’ve built a class just for you. It’s called “Shape Up!”
Shaping in pattern
This class came straight from all of you. By far, the most pattern questions I receive have to do with how to shape a neck, armhole, waist shaping etc, while still STAYING in the stitch pattern!
We’ll start nice and easy, with an exploration on increase and decrease placement, as well as types, in patterns with knits and purls, but then it’s time to kick it up a notch. . .
We’re going to get hands on and work swatches as we bust some shaping myths like the old “eliminate the cable when you don’t have enough stitches to complete it” – boo, which side do you think looks better, the left or the right??
When things really get tricky is shaping in lace. Here, it goes beyond visuals, but we have to deal with stitch count and pattern stacking. In lace you have increases and decreases that make up the pattern. When you also have increases and decreases that shape your pattern you have to deal with the stitch count.
When lace keeps the same number of stitches at the start and end of the row, that means every YO is balanced by a decrease. This has to be factored into your shaping.
We are going to work three different lace swatches with three different shaping methods. We are going to use a chart as a tool, your eyes and visual cues, as well as the stupidest verbal tricks you’ll ever come across.
Just to end with something a bit fun, we’ll deal with the joys of patterns that involve double increases and decreases.
Master shaping in pattern and the world is your oyster.
Do you have a class that you’d like to see next season? Leave me a comment.
A slide show of a few patterns that “shape, staying in pattern”
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