The Sweatshop of Love Blog

I just finished up hosting my first King Alongs and I’d say they were a huge success! I thought they were going well, and then the FOs started rolling in.

Katie's Finished Beatnik!

And then I knew the knit along was a success! Because these sweaters are off the chain! Click on Katie’s pic for more FO shots.

Stefanie's Beatnik!

And this is Stefanie’s first sweater. Seriously.

Biblioholic's Beatnik!

Biblioholic made her sweater longer and I love the length!

Jackie's Beatnik!

Click on Jackie’s pic to read more about her sweater knitting process.

My Mom's Two Boyfriend's Cardigan!

My mom finished her Two Boyfriend’s Cardigan, too! Baby Nolan sure seems to like it!

Emily's Two Boyfriend's Cardigan!

Nolan’s Mommy Emily finished her Two Boyfriend’s Cardigan, too! This is her first sweater.

Emily's OTHER Two Boyfriend's!

And this is her second sweater! She knit herself another larger sweater at the same time to fit over her big pregnant belly! So her first and second sweaters are finished. Aren’t you proud of her?! She rocked it out!

We’ll have more FO pics as more Knit Alongers finish up their sweaters.

Want to get in on our next knit along?! We’ll be voting on our next two sweaters in May. Email me at allyson [at] thesweatshopoflove [dot] com to get on the knit along mailing list, join our Selfish Knit Along Ravelry Group, and keep your eyes peeled here on the blog for more information. It’s going to be awesome and I can’t wait!

And here we are at the end of our knit along. I’ve enjoyed hosting this knit along so much I’m already planning our next one!

But first thing’s first – Let’s finish up these sweaters. Finishing is my least favorite part. When I am done knitting something it should be DONE, not take another 4 hours to put together. But let’s tackle this as efficiently and painlessly as possible.

I’m so proud of everyone for all of the hard work they’ve put into their sweaters! I’ll start highlighting some FOs soon, I’m sure!

Keep emailing me or posting questions on our rav forum, sending me pictures, and, above all, knitting!

Beatnik

Biblioholic's Beatnik!

We’ve got some seaming ahead of us, unfortunately. Seaming is a make or break part of the knitting process, but luckily it’s very easy to MAKE it, once you’ve got the process down.

For this sweater we will start with seaming the shoulders together. Since we knit the body together we don’t have to seam up the side seams, so all that is left is to ease in the sleeves. You want to start with the sleeve seam and then seam the finished sleeve into the body of your sweater.

Lily's Beatnik Sleeves!

The easiest way to make sure your sleeve is seamed in properly is to start in the most obvious spot -the armpit. Attach the seam of the sleeve to the center of the armhole bind-offs of the body of your sleeve with some scrap yarn. Then find the center of the top of your sleeve and attach it to your shoulder seam with some scrap yarn again. From here you can seam between your two markers evenly. If you still aren’t comfortable you can make more markers by finding the center of both your sleeve and body sleeve section between your markers and attaching the pieces with more scrap yarn. This way your sleeve seam sections are divided into quarters to make sure your sleeve is worked it as even as possible.

Ginger4's Beatnik!

And luckily the collar is picked up, so that is the end of your seaming!

This Weeks Beatnik Goal: Knit the collar, seam in your sleeves, weave in the ends, and you are finished!

While the designer gives a stitch total for the number of stitches you want to pick up for this collar, it’s a ballpark number. I picked up my stitches just to see how close I was and I got 138. I really wouldn’t even worry about counting it. Just pick up the stitches evenly around, make sure you knit one row, either as you pick the stitches up or 1 round after you put them all on your needle, and then go to town on that twisted rib.

Jackie's Beatnik!

Picking up Stitches Pointers: Don’t pick up stitches on the very edge of your sweater. Move into that first row of stitches and pick up loops along a ridge of that first row of stitches. You’ll have more of a seam on the inside of your sweater, and less holes on the outside.

Pick up all your stitches and THEN start knitting. That helps you to see if your stitches are even along the needle before wasting time knitting something you are just going to pull out because you didn’t get it right.

If there is a part that looks wonky, pull it. The last thing you want is holes along the front of your sweater, so better to catch any holes as you are picking up stitches, or even in that first row of knitting, than to finish your collar and be driven crazy by holes.

If you get to the end and you picked up an odd number of stitches, just drop a PU St or knit 2 PU sts together to make sure your rib works out. You can do it!

The Two Boyfriends Cardigan

My Mom's Two Boyfriends Cardigan!

One of the joys of The Two Boyfriends Cardigan?! Hardly any finishing! You may have a couple holes at the armpit of your sweater between your picked up stitches that you can go back and seam a little. Otherwise, besides some weaving in of your ends, you are set to start working on your pockets!

Emily's Two Boyfriend Cardigan!

This Weeks Two Boyfriends Cardigan Goal: Knit up your pockets and attach them to your sweater. Weave in your ends and you are finished!

You want your pocket stripes to line up with the stripes of your sweater so, while you’ll be able to see your pockets, they are flush with the body of your sweater.

Gillian's Two Boyfriends Cardigan!

There is really nothing tricky to it!

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Post pics and/or questions on our Ravelry Knit Along forum, email them to me, or tweet them with #solknitalong so I can show them off next week.

Happy knitting!

While the Two Boyfriends Cardigan knitters are happy to have sleeve knitting behind them, Beatnik knitters still have one more week of it.

But can you believe it’s week 7 already?! One more week and we’ll be finished. I can’t believe it!

Keep emailing me or posting questions on our rav forum, sending me pictures, and, above all, knitting!

Beatnik

Katie's Beatnik!

We are slowly making our increases up the sleeve, inching toward the armhole bind offs. I know a few of you said you wanted to change the length of the sleeves, and this is the week to make adjustments. When you are finished with your increases, just keep knitting until you have the sleeve length you want.

Hold a tape measure to your armpit and measure down the length of your straightened arm. 12″ is what the sweater calls for, and will land just under your elbow. Adding length after your increases are completed will, obviously, extend that sleeve length, so just keep working even in pattern until the sleeves are as long as you want them.

Biblioholic's Beatnik!

And just a quick note – I’m working in a much smaller gauge than what the sweater requires, with my size 6 needles and DK weight yarn. After binding off for the armhole, I know my decreasing for my arm wouldn’t be long enough if I don’t make adjustments. I’m planning on decreasing every 3rd row, instead of every other row like the pattern calls for, and see where that gets me.

Let me know if you are also working a smaller gauge and have questions about the sleeve cap decreases.

This Weeks Beatnik Goal: Finish your sleeves. This isn’t a huge amount of knitting if you are keeping your sleeves the length the sweater calls for!

Once you finish your sleeves you can go ahead and seam them up and into your sweater! Otherwise you can save all finishing for the very end. I know I like to spread my finishing out so I’m not seaming for 4 hours straight, wanting to stick that tapestry needle in my eyeball.

The Two Boyfriends Cardigan

Yay! Your sweater looks like a sweater now!

My Sister in Law Emily's Two Boyfriend, and Pregger Belly!

This week we are picking up stitches along the front of the sweater and working our button band. If you’ve never picked up stitches before it can be a scary thought, but just know that there is no rhyme or reason to picking up stitches. You just stick your needle in there and pick up loops.

Picking up Stitches Pointers: Don’t pick up stitches on the very edge of your sweater. Move into that first row of stitches and pick up loops along a ridge of that first row of stitches. You’ll have more of a seam on the inside of your sweater, and less holes on the outside.

Pick up all your stitches and THEN start knitting. That helps you to see if your stitches are even along the needle before wasting time knitting something you are just going to pull out because you didn’t get it right.

If there is a part that looks wonky, pull it. The last thing you want is holes along the front of your sweater, so better to catch any holes as you are picking up stitches, or even in that first row of knitting, than to finish your button band and be driven crazy by holes.

My Mom's Two Boyfriend, and Baby Nolan!

This Weeks Two Boyfriends Cardigan Goal: Knit the button band! You are going to pick up your stitches, knit them on the RS of the sweater, then turn and start working your K2P2 rib on the WS of the sweater.

Be sure to bind off loosely so your button band doesn’t pucker!

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Post pics and/or questions on our Ravelry Knit Along forum, email them to me, or tweet them with #solknitalong so I can show them off next week.

Happy knitting!

How fun is it when our sweaters overlap? This week both Beatnik and The Two Boyfriends Cardigan will both be tackling sleeves – more sleeves for The Two Boyfriends Cardigan, since they started their first sleeve last week.

Sleeves are hand knit sweater killers. Sweater patterns generally start at the body. You’re excited about the pattern, you’re loving your yarn and pattern and rolling through it.

But then you start your first sleeve. And it’s boring. And LONG. And you’ve got to knit another one?!

With The Two Boyfriends Cardigan, luckily with your second sleeve you are knitting with different colors. You can trick yourself into thinking its another piece entirely!

Beatnik knitters are going to try another tactic. Knitting both sleeves at once!

Keep emailing me or posting questions on our rav forum, sending me pictures, and, above all, knitting!

Beatnik

Ginger4's Beatnik!

First of all, congrats on finishing the body of your sweater! I know that when I finished my body I wanted to be wearing my sweater PRONTO! And the biggest thing standing between me and wearing Beatnik every day for the rest of my life are these pesky sleeves.

This Weeks Beatnik Goal: Working both sleeves at the same time, you want to get about 8″ of both sleeves finished this week. The sleeves measure about 12″ to underarm, and after you bind off for the sleeve cap you’ve got about 5-6″ to go. So if you knock off 8″ of sleeve this week, you can finish up the sleeves next week no problem!

If you’ve never knit two sleeves at once, I made this video explaining how to do it. It’s a lifesaver!

(Naturally, we’ve got two weeks to finish knitting these sleeves, so knitting one sleeve this week and one sleeve next week would make sense. I cannot suggest strongly enough you knit these sleeves at the same time.)

The Two Boyfriends Cardigan

Gillian's Two Boyfriend Cardi!

One sleeve down, one to go!

My Mom's Two Boyfriend!

This Weeks Two Boyfriends Cardigan Goal: Knit your second sleeve!

Ann's Two Boyfriend!

You did this once, you can do it again! Luckily you are switching up the sleeve color so SOMETHING changes. But, just like you did with sleeve number 1, slide those stitches back on your needles and go to town.

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Post pics and/or questions on our Ravelry Knit Along forum, email them to me, or tweet them with #solknitalong so I can show them off next week.

Happy knitting!

It seems like most of the Beatnik knitters fell a little bit behind because there was a LOT of knitting in week three. This will be a great week to catch up because there isn’t too much to knitting the front of Beatnik. Even less than the back of Beatnik!

So if you are just starting your armhole separation this week you will be rolling! Finish up that back, then jump on that front and you’ll be good to go.

And with Two Boyfriend Cardigan knitters completely finished with the body of their sweaters we will be stuck in Sleeveland for a while. But how exciting is that?! Sleeves?! Sweet!

Keep emailing me or posting questions on our rav forum, sending me pictures, and, above all, knitting! We are past the halfway point now, so in less than a month we will have finished sweaters! How about that?!

Beatnik

Cherry - I mean Silas's - Beatnik!

By now you’ve already separated the front and back of your sweater. That was the hard part! Now you’ve got your front stitches hanging out on scrap yarn just waiting to be picked up! And that is your first step. Throw those stitches back on your needle, get rid of that yarn, and start following the directions for the front of your Beatnik. Which is to say start following the directions for the BACK of your Beatnik until your front measures (5.5[6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 8, 8.5]) from your armhole shaping – 2″ less than your back measurement.

Stefanie's Beatnik!

From there you start shaping the shoulders and neckline just like you did for the back, only your shoulder sections will be longer to allow for a deeper neckline shaping.

Alaina's Beatnik!

This Weeks Beatnik Goal: Finish the front of your Beatnik! And if you thought the back went fast, the front will go even faster! You are knitting 2 fewer total inches. So, again, it’s a great week to catch up!

Katie's Beatnik Start!

The Two Boyfriends Cardigan

Gillian's Two Boyfriend in the Chicago Blizzard!

First of all, congrats on finishing the body of your sweater! That was a TON of knitting that you just plowed through. Next up, of course, is tackling the sleeves.

If you’ve never used double pointed needles before, this is a great way to ease into them. Since you aren’t starting from the cast on, which is the most challenging part of knitting with double pointed needles, this is like taking a baby step to being DPN proficient!

If you are already DPN proficient, the Two Boyfriends Cardigan sleeves will be a breeze.

This Weeks Two Boyfriends Cardigan Goal: Knit a sleeve!

You are going to slide the stitches you are holding from one of your sleeves onto your double pointed needles, dividing your stitches evenly among your needles. You want to pick up 6 additional stitches from the body of your sweater at the armpit space, and don’t over think it. Just stab in there and pick up some stitches. You are eliminating the hole there, so just make sure they are evenly spaced and you’ll be good. It’s your armpit, you know? Treat it like an armpit.

Place a marker at your armpit center because this is the start and end to your rounds, where you’ll be making your decreases. And go to town! Just like with the body, don’t cut your yarn. You will only be working with two colors so it will be easier to keep your yarn from tangling!

And remember to BO loosely! This sleeve will be roomy and you don’t want it to gather.

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Post pics and/or questions on our Ravelry Knit Along forum, email them to me, or tweet them with #solknitalong so I can show them off next week.

Happy knitting!