Day 2 of our KAL - the Baby Sweater (totally submit a new name please!) brings me to the end of my hood and on to the yoke! That part that starts at the bottom of the hood and makes room for the shoulders!
After you are done knitting the hood to it's required length, you need to decrease a certain amount of stitches all the way around - evenly! That just means to not bunch them up all in one spot! Space them out and make sure you do some on each side. I just did a simple decrease by knitting two together (K2tog) and it looks fine!
Next row......... now you have to increase! What?! Why did I decrease!? Geez! Oh well... it makes the hood look really nice! Increases are pretty simple too - especially with the way this pattern is written! After you've placed your markers where you are told too, you knit up to one stitch before the marker and increase, slip the marker and increase again! This way there is an increase on each side of the marker! It will make it look really cool later - you'll see! Oh wait.. you want to see now?
See those lines? (blue on top) running from top to bottom, by the markers? That's the rows where I've increased. 
The pic on the bottom (yellow) is the same sweater. I finished a while ago - you can really see the increase lines running from shoulder to underarm! I think it looks pretty cool!
With this pattern, look on first page in the paragraph "abbreviations", the writer has written ............
"inc - knit into front and back of next stitch".
Now, I know this means to increase and if I knit into the front and back of a stitch, it magically becomes two! How simple is that! I was a little worried that both stitches that I've increased (one on each side of marker) would then lean the same way.... but.... the first time I made this sweater I really didn't know that so I just followed directions and I was happy! The next time I made it I tried a different increase, making sure each side of the marker leaned in toward the marker. Well.... that was okay and required a bit more thought, but like I said the results were okay. Just okay. Now I'm just going to follow those increase directions just like they are written! The results were the best if I followed the directions... imagine that?!
Following the directions; knit to within 1 stitch of the marker, k into the front back of the marker (increase made), slip marker, inc~! Easy enough!
Just to make it a little more clear............Each stitch has two "legs" of the yarn hanging on the needle - those little loops that wrap around it! To kfb (knit front and back) you do just that. Knit into the front leg *without taking it off needle* and then knit into the back leg *now slip it off* this makes the one stitch 2! Magic! I tried to upload a video of me showing you how, but..... you don't see it?! Right. You don't. It's not there! Grrrrr
This is what we are shooting for!! A simple little hooded sweater! No button holes, no zippers and knit in one piece from the top down! I've already made some changes to mine... I'm doing the Provisional Cast on at the beginning of the hood (the center of the hood) so I can Kitchener stitch it together later for an almost invisible seam... and I'm thinking about how I can add button holes to the front. Hmmm.....
First I have to get to the point where I can make those buttonholes! Right now this is where I am! Finished with the hood and increased to the number of stitches my directions have listed. I'm pretty sure if (IF- ha!) I mess up, I can correct it by just decreasing or increasing to make sure I have the right number of stitches between the markers. Next up is dividing for the sleeves! You can see on the picture (from right to left) there are 4 markers...... when you divide for the sleeves you take the first marker off, k1 and then put all the stitches that were between the 1st & 2nd markers onto a stitch holder ~ a piece of scrap yarn works better! It's easier to manipulate! Do that for the other side and now you get to work on the body stitches! You will come back to those sleeve stitches later and work them into the round (as tubes) down to the wrists!
If you have a problem kfb'ing....
try watching this video *ignore her pattern stuff, just pay attention to the kfb part*
It's simple! It really is. Just looks a lot harder than it really is!
Have fun & I'll see you tomorrow!
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