Short-row neck shaping in Crochet

During my recent foray into sweater design I found myself struggling with the concept of short-row neck shaping. Information on the subject is hard to find. I ended up with so many questions. You'll forgive me, I hope, if I dedicate this months post to answering some of them.

 

Let's start from the beginning in case you have no idea what on earth I am referring to!

If you make a top-down, bottom-up or raglan sweater you end up with the front and back of the sweater being at the same height. But if you take a look at the human body, the neck does not sit centrally. Thanks to the curve of the spine, the back of the neck is much higher than the front. So, without short-row shaping, you may either end up with a chill at the back of the neck or else you may feel like your sweater is strangling you! The answer is to add short rows to the back of the sweater. This raises the back of the neckline while allowing the front to tip forward. But the bottom of the sweater remains straight.

 

There are two ways in which we can do this. Either we add short rows in a sort of crescent shape somewhere within the back of the yoke, or we add short rows across the bottom of the back of the yoke only.

 

Let's start with the first idea and try out the variations.

A crescent shape of short row shaping can be added anywhere within the yoke. I have seen it used it various ways:

immediately right after the neckline is created;

right at the bottom just before the yoke is separated into body and sleeves;

and finally short rows placed at intervals within the yoke.

 

That's all fine and good but it still leaves so many questions!

 

Question One:

Do you start with the longest or the shortest row? 

 

Well let's find out!

Longest row first.

In this sample I have begun with a 'neckline' of 24 Dc (Sc-US) before beginning the short rows with increases. I have worked the zig zag method (see below) making each subsequent row a few stitches shorter. The final pink row is a smoothing row. The 'smoothing row' is simply a row which smooths out the steps left by the short-row ends. After this you would work the yoke.

Shortest row first.

This sample is worked the same but in reverse. After the 24 Dc I have started with a short row which covers a third of the stitches. Then working in a zigzag I have increased the length of each row.

While both methods work, making the shortest row first means that each subsequent short-row acts as a smoothing row.

 

Question Two:

How many rows should there be?

It is usually considered to be about 1 to 2", 2.5 to 5cm. You could also try looking at your favourite garments to see what the difference is between the front and back of the neckline. Obviously it depends on the size you are making and how low you are intending the neckline to be. You will need to make a gauge swatch for whatever stitch you are intending to use to determine how many rows this is. 
 

 

Question Three:

How long should the rows be? 

 

As a general rule, it is understood that the back and front of the sweater are each represented by one-third of the circumference of the yoke, while the sleeves are one-sixth each.

The theory is that the shortest row of shaping should cover the back one-third section of the sweater and the longest row should cover two-thirds of the sweater. Divide the number of stitches in between these two points by the number of rows of short-row shaping remaining to work out where they should start and finish. 

 

Question Four: 

How are they worked in practice?

 

There are two methods which you could use.

Method one:

is worked from the centre outwards in paired rows. 

Start in the centre of the back, work out to the first point and back to the centre. At this point step down to the base row and copy the paired rows to the second point. When you return to the centre join to the top row. This procedure is repeated stepping around to the 2/3rds point on either side.

The next row or round can now be begun from the centre. 

 

Method two:

is worked in a zigzag.

Starting from the centre back, work a short row to the first point then back to it's opposite point. Continue to work in short rows zigzagging from one point to it's opposite pair until reaching the final 2/3rds point on either side.

You can now return to the centre before beginning your next row or round.

 

Question Five:

How do I hide the rows within the yoke? 

You could do this by increasing the height of the stitch you are using over the area you want to raise. In this case you're not actually using short rows.

For instance, if you are working in the round you would mark where the first short row should be. Over this area you work a stitch just a little taller and at the end of that section you would return to making the shorter sized stitches. You would continue to do this in each round until you have worked sufficient rows. 

 

Question Six:

Is there a simpler method?

I'm not sure if it is simpler but straight rows can be added to the base of the yoke on the back only, just before dividing for the sleeves. This is certainly an easier method if you are working a raglan yoke.

In this image the pale pink is worked as a raglan yoke, while the dark pink are the short rows which lift the neck line.

Here the yoke has been folded in half and the sleeves and body begun. From the back view, below, you can see that the short rows are now part of the yoke.

Question Seven:

Can I use any size of stitch?

 

Yes. But it would be advisable to finish each short row with increasingly smaller stitches so that the step at the end of each row is smooth. So for instance, if you are using Trebles (Dc-US) you might finish each short row by stepping down, Hrt, Dc. You would begin the row Dc, Hrt

 

Question Eight:

Do I need to add increases to these short rows?

 

If you are working short straight rows at the end of the yoke, no you don't. 

But in all other cases, then yes. You may have to experiment to see how and where to increase. On the shortest rows you may not need increases at all but on the longest rows they are certainly needed. You might consider how many increases you are adding in the main body of the yoke and work out the number needed as a percentage. For instance, if you are using 12 increases per row in the yoke you might use 4 increase on the shortest row and 8 on the longest row. That is, if the shortest row covers a third of the sweater then 12 divided 3 = 4.

 

Question Nine:

How do I work short rows? How do I 'step down' at the end of a row'?

 

I have never covered that topic on this blog having been taught by our friend Anna over on Mmatildas Virstadt so I am going to send you to her excellent tutorial HERE. She begins with slip-stitches but scroll down and she covers other sizes of stitch. Don't forget to hit the Translation button and select your language!

 

I hope this answers some of your questions. My best advise would be not to worry about the numbers, but just experiment to find out what works best in your design.

 

Fastening off... 

 

 

 

 

Making my own Top-Down Crochet Sweater

  

Last month I shared with you absolutely everything I knew about top-down sweater making. It felt like a lot of knowledge and I set off confidently to design my very first garment. So much for my theory of top-down sweater making! I immediately found a lot of flaws in my plan! In practice it was just not as simple as it seemed. This is how it is going and what I learnt... 

The difference between making a sweater from someone else's pattern, or designing your own, is like the difference between being a passenger or driving the car yourself. Hopefully if you are driving the car you are alert and paying attention, I hope you planned your route ahead of time and haven't just set off in a random direction. With this sweater, I am very much afraid that I did just set off in a random direction. After a while, however, I stopped and asked for directions!

 

In a crisis I am very useful. I can see the immediate need and respond to it. But making a sweater is not like fighting a fire! You have to hold multiple ideas in your head at the same time and be able to envisage how this affects that. I set off with a plan. I chose a stitch pattern and worked out how to increase it. I made my measurements and knew that I had to increase from 90 stitches to 252 in the yoke. I wrote that out as a pattern.

Then I realised that I had forgotten to take into account the under arm chains. These chains are made on the first row which splits the yoke into body and two sleeves. They increase both the bust and bicep measurements. 4 underarm chains increase the bicep measurement by 4 stitches, and the bust by 8 stitches. So I began again deciding how the yoke would increase from 90 stitches to 236.

That evening at bedtime I had a horrible thought. It was at the time which, as The Researcher wisely says, is; when the volume of the "noise" of our daily routine goes down, the problem-solving part of the brain can finally speak to us. I had stacked all my increases! Not only would the increases have been clearly visible, but they would have produced an Hexagonal yoke. How to resolve this problem?

After playing around with new numbers I was not confident, so I asked myself, what do other designers do? It turns out that if the designer is using anything other than plain stitches they either:                                                                            a. work the design as a raglan with the increases stacked at the four corners of the raglan, or

b. add a plain round of stitches between the pattern rows and add the increases to the plain rows.

Ah ha! so I decided to add a row of dc (sc-US) between every two rows of pattern. I had to work a new gauge swatch.

Finally I had the Yoke and the under arm chains. But, I had not worked out how to raise the neckline with short-row shaping. Originally I had envisaged doing this using the two-row stitch pattern. But as I am working short rows back and forth this would never work. And now I come to think about it, every time I have used short-row shaping it has been made either in dc, htr or in slip-stitches. I'll need a gauge swatch for this as well. 

The other thing that occurred to me was that when Dc (Sc-US) is worked back and forth it creates that very obvious two row pattern. So, I chose to make the Wrong-Side row using inverse or Purl Dc. 

 

Short-row shaping in crochet is apparently a well kept secret! If I were a knitter I would go to the original source. I have to say that the best reference is the Nomad Stitches video. That being said, I have worked a number of sweaters with short row shaping and each is worked in a slightly different way.

The short row shaping is supposed to cover two-thirds of the neckline. The longest row comes just past the front shoulder. Imagine that you are making a raglan sweater. That point, front of the right shoulder, would be the corner of the raglan neckline where the increases are stacked. 

In order to find this point: I took the total number of stitches at the base of my yoke (236), divided it by the number of stitches allocated to the biceps (44). In this case that came to 5.36. I then divided the number of stitches in my neckline (90) by 5.36, which gave me 16.79. So I used 16 as the number of stitches which represents the distance between the two points of the raglan at the right shoulder. I have no idea if this is how other people work it out.

I decided the shortest row should cover the only the back of the sweater. Knowing where my longest and shortest rows should end up I now had two fixed points.

I could then divide the stitches in between by the number of rows I needed.

 

There seems to be three methods of working short rows.

One is worked from the centre outwards in paired rows. Work first to the left and back to the centre. At this point step down to the base row and copy the paired rows to the right. When you return to the centre join to the top row. This procedure is repeated stepping around to the 2/3rds point on either side. I tried this method but wasn't pleased with the result.

The second method is worked as a zigzag. Starting from the centre, work a short row to the first point then back to it's opposite point. Continue to work in rows zigzaging from one point to it's opposite pair until reaching the final 2/3rds point on either side.

 

There is also a third method in which straight rows are added to the base of the yoke on the back only, just before dividing for the sleeves. It might be the simplest solution, but as I've never used this method I decided to avoid it.

 

I chose to work the shortest row first, slowly building up the length of the rows. It is also possible to work the longest rows first and slowly shorten the later rows. 

Just to add to the confusion, there is conflicting advice about whether to add increases to the short-rows or not. In my second attempt I did not. It was horrible, so I added increases! Basically I added two increases for every third of the sweater. So for the first, shortest row I added just two increases. I did not add any increases on the next row. But there after I added four increases every even numbered row and none on the odd numbered row.

It took three attempts to get something I was happy with. You'll notice it doesn't lay entirely flat. I am not attempting to create a flat circle. Instead I am trying to create something that will form itself over my shoulders. You'll also see that the last row was extended to reach that point at the back of the left shoulder. This will be the start/end of all my rows until I reach the bottom of the yoke.

Next, I worked a final row of Dc to smooth out last last short row.

You can see how I have lowered the front of the neck line and raised the back. I can now begin working on the yoke. But because of the increases I have added all of my numbers are now different. I am increasing from 114 stitches to 236. There will be 27 rows, or 9 repeats of 3 rows, with the increases being made on the third row of each repeat. You can see what I mean by 'loosing my way'. Next time I do this I will have a better map!

This shows the completed yoke and how it does not lay flat. I have divided the final row of stitches and marked which parts will become the front, back and sleeves. 

Next I checked for fit to make sure that the yoke is long enough. Is there enough room for the arms. The yoke may stretch a little lower when the extra weight of the garment is added. I also have to remember that there will be 4 additional stitches at the underarm. I was very happy to discover that my blasé  "oh the yoke needs to be about 7 inches", turned out to be a lucky guess!

Not quite so lucky, I discovered that my row end was four stitches away from where I needed it to be to separate for the sleeves. I slip-stitched forward to this point and began my new row there. From now on the row end will run down under the arm. 

 

A few rows later, when I had reached the high point of the bust, I decided to decrease under each arm over the next two rows. This removed 8 stitches or 5cm. Then I can increased again at the waist so that it is wide enough at the hips. After years of making sweaters the wrong length I have finally come to the conclusion that the right length for me is about 34cm measured from the under arm. Having reached this point I can check for fit again. 

 

In all honesty it feels too baggy. I am reminding myself that, when blocked I expect to loose about 6cm off the width of the sweater. The places where I have increased and decreased have left a bump and the transition between yoke and body are ruffled. I am hoping that blocking will solve these problems. I am reminding myself that the washed fabric will be softer and have more drape. But I am determined not to second guess myself at this stage! Due to my enthusiastic yarn buying, I can always pull back to where I increased at the waist and re-make this part of the sweater!

 

Now that the weight of the sweater has been added the armhole feels a little low. Perhaps this will correct itself a little when the sleeves are added.

 

How do I finish the bottom edge of the sweater? Ribbing would turn it into a blouson style. Or I could just leave it as it is. Instead I have decided to try a faux I-cord edging from Sue Perez's book. I have changed my hook size up 2mm to a 6mm hook so that the edging does not constrain the width. It gives the impression of a tiny rolled edge.

 

Before starting on the sleeves, it seems like a good idea to finish the neckline. I have a tendency to make my sleeves too short. As the neckline may raise the yoke, it seems like a good idea to do that first before the sleeves! I chose a simple short slip-stitch rib and used a 5mm hook to keep the rib small and neat. I began the ribbing behind the left shoulder where my 'seam' began. But referring to my own instructions for joining the ribbing, the join becomes invisible.

 

Now for the sleeves. Measuring from the underarm to cuff I have 42cm or 16.5". Using this measurement I can calculate that I need about 59 rows. I can add increases at even distances so that the sleeve gently tapers.

In actuality I added 61 rows and finished with the same faux I-cord edging. I discovered that in order to get the rolled edge to appear on the outside of the sweater the final round of crochet, before the I-cord, needed to be made from the outside. I had never noticed before, but the tops of standard crochet stitches tilt forwards. It is very subtle, but in this case it was just enough to make the difference.

 

At this point I made the decision to remove the waist increases. It reduced the circumference by 5cm. Although I am a small person, I seem to be under the impression that I'm an average size. I do have a habit of making my clothes too large! I am still expecting the width to loose 6cm after it is washed which should give it a circumference with 2.5cm/1" of ease on the bust size. This will be large enough if everything works as it aught to.

 

Considering that this is the first sweater I have made completely from scratch, without a pattern, I am very Happy! The size is right and the fit is good. The yoke is the right length and for once the sleeves are neither too long or too short! I am so relieved that my top-down sweater theory turned out to be right.  

 

Hopefully, next time I decide to do this I will have learnt from my mistakes and it will be oh so much easier. More importantly, I hope you will have learnt from my mistakes and you will make this look like a walk in the park!

 

...hmmm? Now maybe I could tackle a raglan yoked sweater? How hard can it be?! 

Fastening off... 

 

 

Designing My Own Top-down Crochet Sweater

How do you design your own Top-down crochet sweater? 

I have a theory, but I have no idea if it will work! My theory has been living in 'the back-seat of my head' for a very long time. Finally, I have plucked up the courage and armed with a bag of ridiculously cheap yarn, I am setting out to test it. This will inevitably take at least two months as I am a slow crocheter, so don't expect the big reveal this month.

 

Why?

I suppose firstly you might want to know why I am putting myself through all this stress. Have you ever sewn yourself an item of clothing from a pattern? The paper pattern comes with all sorts of adjustments for size. For crochet or knitted items, not so much! If you are lucky, the designer will tell you to adjust for body length or arm length 'here'. But otherwise, you pretty much have to be a genius if you have a large bust or wide hips, narrow shoulders, big biceps, I could go on. Also I loath seams!

 

Why reinvent the wheel? Isn't there already a handy formulae for working all this out? 

For knitting sure, but for crochet there isn't a lot of information out there. Elizabeth Zimmerman is the accredited expert on knitting. Her formulae is heavily based on percentages and honestly, I find it really confusing. Dora Does has written an excellent post on the subject. I want to show you my theory in action and we can both learn from my mistakes!

 

Let's get started!

Before I do anything else, I need to pick my yarn, my stitch pattern and hook size. The problem here is that as I know nothing right now I have no idea how much yarn I will need to purchase. If there was a brilliant wool shop round the corner there would be no problem. I could try out my yarn, design the sweater and then go back to buy the quantity I think I need. Instead, because I like to add additional jeopardy to my projects (apparently!) I have bought what I think is a sweaters worth.

The yarn I have chosen is Drops Belle, which is a DK weight Cotton, Viscose, Linen mix.

 

The stitch pattern is a simple Dc, Tr repeat, (Sc, Dc-US). I will be working in rows, turning at the end and working the same repeat, Dc into tr below, Tr into dc below. I'm keeping the stitch pattern simple so that it is easy to add increases and decreases. The recommend hook size is 4mm, so I tried that and I liked the fabric that resulted.

The next thing to do is to weigh and Measure the Swatch. 

Then block the swatch and when dry re measure.

I did two, one blocked (right), one unblocked (left) so that we can compare the difference.

The blocked fabric has less texture, but the fabric is more dense because the yarn has relaxed. However it also has more drape. I can also see that the blocked swatch has retained the same gauge for the height. That is, there are the same number of rows to 10cms. But it has shrunk in width. Incidentally, I made the swatch roughly 15cm² so that I could measure the 10cms from the centre and get a better idea of the gauge.

I need to work out the details for my sweater using the blocked swatch gauge. It is important to have both sets of numbers however!

 

Working out how to Increase and Decrease.

Before going any further I need to know how to add increases. My stitch pattern is a two stitch repeat so every increase will be made up of two stitches. I have decided that the neatest way to do this is to work each two-stitch increase over two rows. Adding one additional stitch on each row.

The easiest way to increase in a yoked sweater would be to work a plain row between patterned rows. Then the increases would be made in the plain rows only. 

Taking Measurements.

I need to take my own body measurements and it's helpful to also take measurements from a number of garments that fit well. The difference in, say, your actual bust measurement and the bust measurement from your favourite sweater is called ease. In my case I have 3"/7.6cm of ease on the bust but only 2"/5cm of ease on the biceps. 

The most important measurements to begin with are bust, biceps and the drop from the top of your shoulder to the under arm.

Working out the Yoke. 

The yoke has to grow from the neck circumference to the bust circumference over the distance from the neckline to the bottom of the yoke.

So in my case, the sweater begins 56cm wide and it has to grow to be the chest circumference including ease (96.5cm)+ the bicep measurements including ease (30.5cm x 2) = 157.5cm. 

How deep is the yoke? Even if I crochet the neckline I will not know how low it will hang because it lacks the weight of the sweater. Consider, the wider the neckline the shallower the yoke will be. I am going to begin with 18cms / 7", which is the drop, vertically, from the top of my shoulder to my underarm. The beauty of this type of garment is the ability to try it on as you go, and to make adjustments. So I am relying on this as my fall back position if it all goes horribly wrong!

Under Arm Chains!

I forgot about these! When you reach the bottom of the yoke you divide the yoke into the part which will become the body and the parts which will become the sleeves. You can just crochet straight across ignoring the parts which will become the sleeves. But I have found that the sweaters I have made in the past with underarm chains fit better. I plan to add 4 chains across each under arm which is approximately 2.5cm, in this case. These chains will add an additional 2.5cm to each sleeve width and 5cm to the bust width =10cm in total. Therefore I need to rewrite the figures, above.

So, I now know that I need to increase from 56cm to 147.5cm over 18cm.

Or, converted into stitches using my gauge, 90 sts to 236 sts in 25 rows. 

 

Short Row Shaping. 

It is perfectly acceptable to make a top-down sweater without adding any short row shaping. What it means is that the front and back of the sweater are at an equal height. If the neckline is high it can feel like you are being strangled. It can also leave you with a chill at the back of the neck.

The answer is to add a number of short rows somewhere in the yoke. Usually they are placed either at the start of the yoke, or at the bottom. The rows are worked to form a kind of crescent. This turns the round yoke into a sort of egg shape, bringing the back up and the front down.

I quickly realised that I am going to be unable to work these rows in the stitch pattern I have. It will be much easier to work them in Dc (Sc-US), so now I need to do a small gauge swatch.

The longest row should cover ⅔ of the neckline. From what I have read the short rows should be about 2"/5cm deep at the back of the neck. In my new Dc gauge that will be 10 rows. 

This is the diagram I drew to envisage what that will look like.

This YouTube video by Sandra at Nomad Stitches is really helpful in explaining more about short rows. 

Seam.

I know I told you that there would be no seam, but as I am turning at the end of each round it will leave a visible line. It is my intention to place the row ends down through the yoke in roughly the same position as the increases would be if this was a raglan sweater. I'm placing them at the back of my left shoulder. When I divide for the sleeves I hope to take the round ends down from the under arm. I'm not 100% confident I can do this without making an adjustment at some point. That is another of those, 'I'll cross this bridge when I get there' problems!

 

Apparently there is no magic formulae to convert all of this knowledge into a set of numbers to crochet from. Instead it is a matter of trial and error, lots of paper and a very big eraser! 

 

A note for my American cousins!

Inches versus centimetres. 

Being of a certain age I span the UK's change from Imperial to Metric measurements, so I tend to use both for different purposes. I suggest, dear American cousin, that you do the same! Doing maths in metric is so much easier and therefore I haven't even attempted to do the conversion for you except where it is readily known.

 

Over to You!

What have I missed or forgotten? What is going to go horribly wrong? Should I add ribbing to my neckline and hems, or something else? Any advice you have would be gratefully received! Then please come back next month to find out how its going and what I have learnt.

 

...fastening off