theraineysisters knitting and so much more

As promised, a discussion about that wonky thing that happens with short rows on a circular sweater!!

Many sweaters are now made in one piece, either topdown or bottom up.  There is usually shaping at the neck or somewhere near the yoke to raise the back neck.  The shaping is done using short rows.  This means that your “knit in the round” sweater needs to be worked back and forth to complete the short row section.

Short rows come in many varieties and seem to go in and out of fashion: wrap and turn, yarnover, Japanese, German.  Right now German short rows are quite popular.  I myself usually prefer Japanese.  Be that as it may, no matter what type you use they have the same issue.  Short rows like to be resolved in the direction they were created.  In other words, a ‘knit to the turning point and turn’ short row is best resolved by knitting.  A ‘purl to the turning point and turn’ short row is best resolved by purling.  This works great in flat knitted pieces.  But a problem arises when the short row section is completed and it is time to go to back to knitting in the round.  Knitting the last purl short row is wonky.  Major wonky.  Really, really distorted and pulled out of alignment.

I have tried many different short rows to minimize this issue and none worked very well.  I even asked the big knitting brains at Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp which method worked best and no one had a solution.  I am currently working on Sunshine Coast — knit in the round but for the short rows.  I tried using a German short row for the final purl turn, but it looked terrible.  Somehow my inner brain remembered a rather obscure (or should I say, lesser known) short row method that I thought I would try since I had already decided that I needed to restart the sweater anyway: Shadow Stitch Short Rows.  I don’t even know how I remembered this method, but I thought the double shadow stitch might be less prone to distortion.

I actually used this method for both my knit and purl short rows.  I love it!  When I changed from back-and-forth to knitting in the round, the transition point distortion was minimal!  Yay!!  Here are some not very good pictures:

Here are the knit-wise short rows – they are in the 10-stitch section between the pins:

Here are the purl-wise short rows, including the transition to circular knitting:

I think it looks great!  Much better than usual.  This is what I love about knitting.  There is always something new to learn and new tools to add to the toolbox!!  You can even use your favorite short row method all the way through and just use this for the last purl short row.