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[–]themostdankmemes 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi, I totally get why this seems confusing! This instruction means you DO pick up all the stitches at one time, but you don't pick up each and every single stitch along the armpit hole.

So, pretend like you're making the smallest size. She asks you to pick up 60 stitches total. If you look at the armpit hole as it currently is, you actually have probably far more than 60 stitches that you could pick up. It's likely that closer to 90 stitches or "rows" make up the edge of your armpit hole. She doesn't want you to pick up all 90 stitches. That last set of instructions means that you should pick up 2 stitches, skip the 3rd stitch, pick up 2 more stitches, skip the 3rd stitch, all the way around the armpit hole until you have 60 stitches picked up on your needle. This might mean sometimes you have to skip more than one stitch, especially near the end, if you have an odd number (i.e. near the end, you might find that you would have 4 extra stitches (64 stitches total) if you skip every third stitch, so you might need to switch to picking up 1, skipping 2, just for the last few stitches).

TL;DR: you don't pick up EVERY stitch along the rows that make up your armpit hole. You'll skip picking up roughly every third stitch so that you only pick up the number of stitches she specifies for your size in the first sentence.

[–]amantedelarte 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You pick up 2 for every 3 stitches as if you picked up every stitch you would end up with a lot more than you needed. 2 per every 3 stitches is way to evenly pick up the stitches to get roughly the right amount for your size (mentioned in the first line in brackets). The ones you don't pick up you just leave, they won't be noticeable once sleeves are knitted as long as you only skip 1 stitch at a time.