If you want a good-looking sweater, one that looks “hand-crafted” rather than “homemade,” you have to make your finishing decisions before you ever pick up the needles. YES! Read that again: SWEATER FINISHING BEGINS EVEN BEFORE YOU PICK UP THE NEEDLES AND CAST ON.

How do I know this? I mean, I’ve made a lot of sweaters in my life, but not enough to make such a bold pronouncement. However, I’ve been helping knitters for over 50 years and I spent 10 of those as the trusty Tuesday Troubleshooter at my beloved local yarn shop, Dinah’s Yarn Shop in Port Hadlock WA. That’s over 500 Tuesdays when people brought me their problems, at least 2 or 3 a day, sometimes 8 or 12.

Ninety-seven to 98% of all the problems that came through the door had to do with only two subjects: 1) what do I have to do to get this sweater to fit right 2) how can I sew it together so that it looks good?

To help people solve problem #1, how to make sweaters that fit, I wrote Sweater 101: How to Plan Sweaters That Fit and Organize Your Knitting Life at the Same Time that was first published in 1991.

In the summer of 1992 we [a professional video crew and I] shot this video to help you solve problem #2, how to put garments together so that they look good: Finishing 101: Easy Finishing for Pullover Sweaters. The original master has gone missing, but I kept trying different technical tricks to pull a decent version for YouTube. I’m happy with the results.

I hadn’t seen this video for close to 18 years until I begged a copy and looked at it about six months ago. I thought that with all the information already on the internet that it would be unnecessary and out-dated. But it isn’t. It’s still great information and, I have to say, I’m proud of this work I did all those years ago. It tickles me to say that, and I celebrate the technical magic that allows me to share it with you.

Enjoy!

p.s. Even though YouTube has upgraded my account to let me put up videos longer than 15 minutes, I broke the program into 5 smaller pieces. I suggest you view them in order to learn the skills in context and get “the big picture.” And yes, that rose at the very end is from my garden.

SWEATER FINISHING 101-PART 1

SWEATER FINISHING 101-PART 2

SWEATER FINISHING 101-PART 3 This is the part in which you learn short-row shoulder shaping, right and left leaning increases, and how to knit a sleeve cap that you’ll be able to sew into an armhole with some degree of grace.

SWEATER FINISHING 101-PART 4 This part of the class is devoted entirely to sewing a set-in sleeve cap into an armhole. You need to use 3 different kinds of seams. It’s not hard. You just need to see how its done.

SWEATER FINISHING 101-PART 5 Learn a lot about blocking and turn down your volume when you see me pull out the mammoth wooden spoon that was my Aunt Mary’s. Think “tailors’ clappers.” (Does anyone know what tailors’ clappers are any more?)

Here is the first installment of “Color on the BOND,” the last of my 3 video classes from 1988. This focuses on machine knitting stripes. It applies to any machine and not just the BOND.

Bring to class all your regular tools and  4 or 5 colors of worsted weight yarn.

If you can cast on and knit a few rows, you already know how to make horizontal stripes. Vertical and diagonal stripes are fun to add.

Enjoy!

Certainly Fair Isle, or stranded knitting, is one of the most beloved of color knitting techniques. One of the fun secrets about it is that using only two colors per row and cleverly changing them you can create rich tapestries of fabric that look a lot more complicated than they really are.

Enjoy!

There is a beloved Scandinavian pattern of scattered, single stitches of a different color called “Little Lice” or “Little Birds.” You’ll recognize it when you see it.

This technique can leave long “floats,” the yarn lengths between the contrast color stitches. Fortunately, you can “catch” those floats behind other stitches to make them more manageable.

Another very popular color technique is intarsia or “picture knitting.” The wire fabric guide on the carriage of the original BOND machine made this technique very messy to knit. Yarns got tangled and it was tough to keep things sorted out.

To solve this problem, I developed the “Improved Rube-Goldberg, Spare Parts Intarsia Technique” that used the following parts:

• two 2-inch or larger C-clamps
• two 2½” by ⅝” corner irons
• “the stick”–a 50 to 60-inch length of ¼” by ¾” stiff wood or metal.

Those of you who have more modern machines have a different style carriage and don’t need all this hardware.

The technique itself, is an endless source of creativity and design possibilities. But I have a caution for you before you attempt your own designs. You know from watching “Meet Your BOND” and “Your First BOND Sweater” that stockinette stitches are not squares, but rectangles.

What this means in practical terms is that if you chart your picture of an M&M on regular, square graph paper, the knitted result will be a flat oval.

To graph your own designs you need to do a gauge swatch first, then use the right size knitters’ graph paper. CLICK HERE for a great resource for free printable knitters’ graph paper.

Beyond that . . . enjoy!

In this last of the installments of “Color on the BOND” you learn to recognize combined techniques and how to combine them yourself.

If you’re wondering why it took me 24 “movies” or separate uploads to YouTube to put up three classes it’s because YouTube has a limit to how long your movie can be–– only 15 minutes each. Thus, I had to break the programs down into logical pieces.

I hope you enjoy them all.

Welcome to “Your First BOND Sweater” where you will make a child’s size 3 sweater in the fewest number of exact steps.

BRING TO CLASS:

1) your BOND and its parts
2) a table to put it on
3) two claw weights
4) scissors
5) 2 x 1 transfer tool
6) a BOND row counter
7) two skeins (3.5 oz or 100 grams) acrylic worsted weight yarn or other machine washable yarn.

TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS CLASS:

1) View the tape through once without stopping to knit.
2) During the second viewing, work along with the tape. It will take you 6 to 10 hours to complete the sweater.
3) Be gentle with yourself. We all feel awkward when we first try something new. Keep practicing and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you and your BOND will be singing in sweet sweater harmony.

THE PATTERN FOR THE CLASS:

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FIRST BOND SWEATER PATTERN

Again, I see seeds of Sweater 101 in this project. People loved this pattern so much that they wrote me (letters . . . we had no email back then) asking if I had others in different sizes. No, I didn’t, but I decided to teach them how to do it themselves.

The original pattern was hand drawn and typed with my electric typewriter. I then cut it into pieces and glued it to a piece of paper to send to the printer (the guy with the press, not the little box on your desk).

I scanned the only copy I could find and put it into pdf format so that you can download and print it for your convenience. We’ve come a long way in the media-sophistication department kids!

ENJOY!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FIRST BOND SWEATER PATTERN

I’m an old high school English teacher. Well, that is . . . I’m old(ish) and I was a high school and middle school English teacher for a number of  years. Thus, I build “lesson plans” rather than demonstrate random, isolated skills. The reason I chose, all those years ago, to design this course was that I wanted to teach the skills of making a sweater in context and in sequence.

This is what 100 years of public school and Department of Defense teaching experience taught me (well . . . not really 100 years, but I get extra credit for teaching in mammoth high schools outside of Detroit for 9 of those years). Things need to be relevant to our lives in order for them to stick in our heads. You wanna make sweaters right? Well, here’s your first one. Follow the steps and it will be a huge success. You will be totally stoked!

Enjoy!

This is a quick and easy technique that you can apply to many situations. Any time you need to mark a row in order to attend to it later, think of this.

This is a review of the short-row shoulder shaping you saw in “Meet Your BOND,” and it bears repeating. You need 6 to 12 exposures to a new concept, word, and/or skill in order to “own it” as part of your internalized skill set. And this is a plain dandy thing to know.

People are still writing patterns that say, “Bind off x number of stitches at the beginning of the next 6 rows” for sloped shoulders. Trust me when I say that this direction is not the best practice. Short rows, whether you are hand or machine knitting, are better. I am loathe to make pronouncements of this type, but given my experience, which is only about 58 years worth, step bind-offs are nasty to sew up. Short-row shaped edges knit together with elegance and ease.