Shall We Begin?

I was all gung-ho to get going earlier on my cardi and boy did time get away from me! I'm guessing everyone out there has already cast on and started knitting away. I've made my way through the first section and I'm in the second section, ready to start the first lace chart. But before I start on the lace, I wanted to talk about some of the techniques used in the first section. I know we have a variety of knitters joining us on this knit along, and I don't want to assume that everyone is familiar with every technique. With that in mind, I may be covering some topics that may seem rather basic, but I believe are very important. I hope to encourage all of you to really think about your knitting and learn from it, it will help you become not only a good knitter, but help you turn out FOs (Finished Objects) that you like and can wear.
This cardi starts out simply with a garter stitch border. The first thing we come to is a simple button hole made with a knit-two-together and a yarn-over. Personally, I am the kind of person who picks my buttons when my knitting is done. This means I can just pick whatever works with my FO so I don't worry too much about the size if the button hole. But, bear in mind that size of your button hole is the size of your yarn over, which will vary with each yarn and needle you work with. This means, that if you have chosen a particular button before you start knitting, you'll want to be sure your button hole will be the right size. There are many ways to make a button hole, which is probably another topic for another day, but I did want to mention it for those who might be new to knitting a garment like this.
The rest of the first section and beginning of the second section are pretty straightforward (garter stitch, stockinette stitch, eyelets formed with Knit-two-togethers and yarn-overs), with one exception - increases!! Within the first section you start increasing your number of stitches; this is how you will shape the cardi going from the neck to the body and the arms. I should probably warn all of you now, I'm one of those crazy people when it comes to increasing and decreasing. I can't help it, I love me some good decorative shaping!! But I'll try and stick to just some basic increasing today...
I won't try and explain every type of increase, because there are way too many to cover in one little blog post. But, it is important to understand them a little bit to get the most out of your knitting. Increasing the number of stitches will shape your project, and the way you increase can effect the final look of your project. For example, you can increase one stitch by making a yarn over, but you also get a hole in your work. That can be a decorative part of the pattern though, with the hole appropriately placed to give a lace look perhaps. Or you can use what are called a leaning or slanting increase along the edge to mimic the way the way your piece will be shaped or to accentuate a line of shaping in the center. If a pattern intends the shaping to be decorative, it should be specific as to what type of increase it wants you to use to get the desired effect. The shaping in project our isn't meant to be decorative, just a practical increase. In these cases of practical increases it will usually just say m1 (make one). Now, Knitty.com is kind enough to offer The Knitty Standards to help us decipher their patterns. All books, magazines, and well written single patterns should offer you a list of abbreviations like this to help you read the pattern. There are instructions in The Knitty Standards on how to Make 1, or you may use your preferred method. I always recommend every knitter have a general knitting reference book or stitch dictionary in their library. It helps to be able to look at the descriptions and instructions to help determine when you should use which kind of shaping. Through my years of knitting, I've become partial to knitting through the back loop for my increases. I've tried to zoom in on my photo here so you can see what they look like, but photography is not my strong point! You will often see this increase abbreviated as 'K1, K1tbl' or even 'kfb' (knit through front and back loop). Essentially, you are going to knit the stitch normally (this is knitting through the front) and before you take your old stitch off the left hand needle, you insert your needle a second time through the back of the stitch and knit a second stitch. I'm better at demonstrating this than explaining this (clearly I'll never write a book), but you can find videos at www.KnittingHelp.com. Bear in mind that all Make 1 stitches are going to be slightly visible in some way. Knitty's make one can leave a tiny hole or gap and my make one makes a little bar across the increase, but they all accomplish the same thing.
Hopefully this has provided a *little* insight for everyone. I don't want to suggest that you question every detail of a pattern, but I think it is important to understand why the designer is using a certain technique in a certain situation. The more you understand a pattern in the way, the more freedom you have to customize it or write one yourself!

Happy Knitting!!
Maggie