sweater surgery

I’ve been knitting a big, cozy, cardigan for D., but it’s gone through a few iterations in the last few weeks! I knit up some love set-in, horizontal pockets…but they were deemed too small so I ripped them out (I’ll have to save those pockets for something for myself and my tiny hands!). Then I knit up some nice kangaroo pockets, like those on a hoodie:

And they are good! Except for the fact that the body was then too long below the pocket. Clearly I haven’t been planning very well on this project, just kind of knitting. I really didn’t want to rip all that pocket work again, so I decided on some surgery instead.

I picked up stitches in a row below the pocket, where I wanted the new hem to start, by using a spare needle and picking up half of each ‘V’ stitch across. You can see that there’s a few inches of stockinette below the needles there, but I want to get rid of all of that.

Then I gave ‘er a snip…

…and separated the old hem from the sweater by picking out that row.

When you pick up stitches like this, it doesn’t line up exactly with the old fabric, because you’re going in a different direction. I lost half a stitch at the beginning and ends of the row, so I had to increase 1 stitch on the first new row. Luckily, I planned a purl ridge on the RS where the patterning switches to garter rib, so it really doesn’t show much! I knit down about three inches then bound off for the bottom of the body.

Now I’m back on track! Half a sleeve and most of the body.

I do have a new sweater idea that I’m itching to get on the needles though, so we’ll see how much attention this project gets this week.