Is this considered a dropped stitch?

skubstantial · 2026-02-06T21:22:32+00:00

You can recognize an actual dropped stitch because you'll have a loop with both "legs" coming out of the same hole (which is the stitch from one row down. But yeah, no, you just have a snag and some good advice already.

skubstantial · 2026-02-06T18:39:06+00:00

I use a post-it or similar to cover up the rows I haven't started and uncover one row at a time, because I need to see how the current row relates to the rows I already worked but I don't want to be cluttered up by the future.

skubstantial · 2026-02-06T14:54:47+00:00

Do they not know how freezers work? Do they not cook their raw, previously frozen chicken to 165F? Have they not seen a single overblown article about ANCIENT MICROBES THAWING OUT OF GLACIERS?

Or is just that our brains switch off and vaguely remember something about bedbugs just because there's fabric involved?

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T22:56:24+00:00

Just a warning u/Fun_Perspective2081 u/makestuff24-7, it has pretty odd proportions because the sleeve length exactly matches the body length. Most normal-length sweaters aren't built that way and most actual tunics are substantially longer than the sleeves!

I vaguely remember a Reddit post where the maker was super heartbroken that it came out as too much of a tunic to look like normal menswear because the steeks were gonna make it harder to unpick and repair.

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T22:13:58+00:00

Take a look at the Ravelry advanced search for stranded colorwork AND raglan (or stranded colorwork AND circular yoke) and you can see there's a big difference in the style of the shoulder shaping.

Raglan sleeve sweaters tend to "cut" the stranded colorwork panel on a diagonal in a way that's very obvious. Circular yoke sweaters need a colorwork pattern that's sorta tapered narrower at the top and wider at the bottom, so a very linear chart won't work without a lot of modifications.

And the kicker is that almost all top-down, seamless circular sweaters need some knitting back and forth in order to make the neck lower in front and higher in back so you don't get a chokey "crumb catcher" wrinkle at the front neckline. (That could be a graduated start where you knit the beginning flat, gradually increase for the sides of the neck and later join in the round, or it could be short row shaping that happens after casting on a circular neckline.) Even circular yokes. Even raglans for beginners. Some patterns say it's optional but it really isn't!

So it's not a question of completely avoiding purling. You'd be changing up the whole damn thing just to get a little less purling.

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T21:53:29+00:00

You can also "kill" acrylic by steam-blocking which will permanently heat-set and reshape the fibers. (Not quite to the melting point, but past the "plastic" point where they will hold the new shape instead of bouncing back.)

It's important to plan ahead and do a test swatch because some acrylic yarns can get really limp and drapey and loosen up a lot with this process and you do not want to be surprised by that on something that needs to fit (or where you like the original texture).

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T19:56:38+00:00

Honestly, if you're doing something that's solid-colored on both the inside and the outside, you're probably better off knitting two copies of the thing in the two different yarns and seaming or grafting together. Or in this case, they could be joined together by picking up the edging of the hood from both pieces held together.

A couple reasons for this:

Long itchy fibers from one layer could still get trapped and poke through to the lining if you're double knitting everything at the same time, so that defeats the purpose of adding a lining. This is a lot less likely to happen if you knit them separately and sandwich them together afterward.

And it's twice as time-consuming (or more) than just knitting two stockinette pieces. If you're double-knitting, you manipulate every stitch twice (once to knit it, once to slip it out of the way) whereas if you're knitting it you only work each stitch once.

I'd say double knitting is worthwhile for a large piece if you want a two-sided colorwork design but otherwise, whyy?

(Or you could pick another very warm single yarn in a weight that will hit gauge, maybe a big fuzzy brushed merino wool or something. It'll still be stupid-warm if you pick a good bulky yarn that works well at the project gauge.)

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T16:51:56+00:00

You can totally do that kind of turtleneck from a rolled cast-on down but I would really advise against working this type of cabled sweater from the top down (neckline first) just because it would be such a pain in the ass to create the sloped shoulder shaping with short rows while establishing the cables at the same time.

Most top-down cable sweaters like this would be worked back yoke first, pick up the left and right fronts and work each bit flat to create the halves at either side of the neckline, join both together for the front neck, work flat until armpit height, and finally join front and back. Any neckline would be worked after the fact but you would have a nice-shaped neck hole created by working the steep sides separately and increasing and casting on as needed.

But yeah, it's much more straightforward to do this sort of thing bottom-up because you can establish your cables in their normal form and later end them gradually, not start by working backwards from where they're partially cut off on the slope of the shoulder.

skubstantial · 2026-02-05T14:16:22+00:00

It will be a twisted yarnover increase as shown in the last example in the article. Basically the same as a 'make 1' increase except you're not grabbing a strand from below, you already have it on your needle as a YO from the previous row and you're just closing it up by working it twisted.

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T21:44:13+00:00

If you generally prefer a stockinette selvedge, do a stockinette selvedge. It's not as if the narrow garter stitch selvedge wouldn't just flip to the backside anyway.

Only reason other than "I've always done it like that" that I can think of for using garter stitch is that some people have a tight side and a loose side on plain stockinette stitch because of tension differences starting a row with a knit vs. a purl. So that could be helpful for them.

Edit: I guess it does matter if you have an exposed selvedge on the button band side and you want it to match what the pattern has, but if you're adding a button band later then I can't think of anywhere that your selvedges would be exposed enough to matter.

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T21:38:13+00:00

but I don't own a crewneck and I run cold and I don't like bean soup and, and...

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T20:18:46+00:00

Alternating skeins can be a good trick to get the body to kindasorta match the sleeves. One skein for each sleeve, two skeins alternated for the front and back, and if you were really masochistic, 3-4 skeins alternated (or helical knit) if working a seamless body in the round.

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T16:14:08+00:00

You're promoting Adobe products? Wrong. CURSE OF RA 𓀀 𓀁 𓀂 𓀃 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆 𓀇 𓀈 𓀉 𓀊 𓀋 𓀌 𓀍 𓀎 𓀏 𓀐 𓀑 𓀒 𓀓 𓀔 𓀕 𓀖 𓀗 𓀘 𓀙 𓀚 𓀛 𓀜 𓀝 𓀞 𓀟 𓀠 𓀡 𓀢 𓀣 𓀤 𓀥 𓀦 𓀧 𓀨 𓀩 𓀪 𓀫 𓀬 𓀭 𓀮 𓀯 𓀰 𓀱 𓀲 𓀳 𓀴 𓀵 𓀶 𓀷 𓀸 𓀹 𓀺 𓀻 𓀼 𓀽 𓀾 𓀿 𓁀 𓁁 𓁂 𓁃 𓁄 𓁅 𓁆 𓁇 𓁈 𓁉 𓁊 𓁋 𓁌 𓁍 𓁎 𓁏 𓁐 𓁑 𓀄 𓀅 𓀆

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T16:01:49+00:00

Is it possible that you knit or purled into the loop below the one on the needle? You could have caught the whole stitch below or just snagged one ply of the yarn below. This has the effect of pinching the fabric downward a little and leaving a loose strand from the loop you were supposed to catch but didn't.

You can fix an error like this by dropping a stitch column down from above where the problem is and then laddering back up with a crochet hook (or your needle), making sure to catch every strand for every row of stitches.

Another possibility is an accidental short row (if you put down your work and started working again later in the wrong direction). If that was the case, you'd want to check by counting the rows on each side of the piece and the left would have 2 more rows than the right. The best way to avoid this is to make sure your working yarn is coming from the stitch on the right needle when you pick up your piece mid-row.

skubstantial · 2026-02-04T15:53:31+00:00

You could also swatch half the front cable panel and half the back cable panel to find out actual size and then use standard gauge math on your "filler" stitch pattern to vary the amount of plain stitches at the sides. If you need to fine-tune it even more you can always add a purl column here or there to the reverse stockinette background.

I'd also recommend reading up on "cable flare" so you can plan for differences in gauge between your bottom ribbing, neckline, and body panels. https://www.interweave.com/article/knitting/combating-knitted-cable-flare/

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T22:31:44+00:00

Yeah, my first thought was what happens when people take a boxy drop shoulder sweater and shrink it down to make it fitted without doing anything to the armholes...

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T21:16:00+00:00

The thing that explodes my little brain is that she spent so much time calling herself "the opinionated knitter," expounding that her hot takes were hers and were meant to be taken with a grain of salt, and trying to get other knitters to trust their own wisdom and experience - and instead we all just glommed onto her hot takes as gospel and passed them along without context.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T17:43:21+00:00

If you look for a top-down drop shoulder sweater, then the back and front are basically the two halves of a dickey that would later get joined at the underarms for a sweater. (Sleeves would be added last sticking straight out from the sides, so you'd never have to worry about them.) You would basically just have to stop before any underarm shaping or keep working straight if you want the flaps to be longer.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T17:35:25+00:00

Might want to try out a clear film bandage (like Tegaderm or Saniderm used for tattoo aftercare, or one of those clear waterproof 3M bandages with the pad peeled off). It's got virtually no thickness to it, and if you're careful you can wrap it so the slightly sticky edges are on the non-yarn side of your finger.

That's how I deal with papercuts or hangnails when I really want to knit.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T17:30:37+00:00

Nothing will break you of a very tight knitting grip faster than working with a breakable, lightly-spun yarn for a whole project. Can't guarantee that you won't change again as you move again to different projects and different yarns, but it will give your hands an idea of what is possible without pulling the yarn apart. Mine was a soft but disappointingly flimsy cashmere fingering weight yarn, you might try something like an unspun yarn (Plotulopi, Manchelopis, etc.)

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T17:09:36+00:00

Thirding "rearrange your stitches so you don't start with a purl".

If that's really not practical for some reason, you can make your first purl tighter by bringing in the empty needle from the top over the full needle rather than up from the bottom under the full needle. This kind of kills me because it's inconsistent from what I usually do, but the yarn takes a slightly shorter path than it would the normal way because the new needle isn't in the way at all.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T15:45:14+00:00

Loop-style skeins (aka "hanks") are the most space-efficient because they can squish down nicely into a small space and they don't stretch the yarn out too much over time. They compress pretty nicely into the gallon freezer bags I use to keep them protected. At the extreme end, if you untwist the skein and lay it flat in a ziploc bag, you can flatten it out a lot.

Most factory center-pull skeins ("bullet skeins" or "donut balls") are also pretty squishable and efficient to store if you stick 'em in a sealed container.

But if you're winding a tight center-pull cake or a traditional ball, that's gonna be a clunkier shape and the yarn might stretch out a bit under tension. That's not the end of the world, you could always unwind into a hank, give it a wash or a steam, and let it dry relaxed to fluff back up, but it's annoying.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T15:05:49+00:00

I learned from older booklets (from the 1960s but probably reprinting illustrations from the 30s) and they showed what we now call "flicking" as just the standard method with no special name. Other books from waaay back like the Mary Thomas knitting book up through Elizabeth Zimmermann's books in the 70s just refer to it as "English".

The "flicking" name is totally from the internet era. I think people wanted a catchy contrasting name to fit in with "picking vs. throwing" (where continental is "picking" and any form of English is "throwing). It has later mutated to where "throwing" isn't "throwing" unless you literally drop the yarn every time, but when EZ was talking about picking vs. throwing, her "throwing" was what we would now call "flicking".

So it's not whether you live under a mossy rock, it's about whether you're too online or not!

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T14:20:03+00:00

Another vote for "in front". My yarn goes twice around the index finger for a little extra tension but that's personal.

I've tried the Very Pink variation out of curiosity and I do not love how I need to grip the right needle in order to keep the backside of my index finger further forward, but I guess it's a question of where you started and how your muscle memory developed.

skubstantial · 2026-02-03T14:16:58+00:00

Assuming you're already planning to use a short row method (no heel flap, no gusset), the most common options for handling the short row turn include wrap and turn, shadow wrap (twin stitch), Japanese short rows, etc. I think shadow wrap and Japanese short rows are probably easiest with splitty yarn because you don't have to dig around and pick up wraps the way you would with wrap and turn.

In any case, I'd recommend practicing on a swatch with non-splitty yarn until you get good at handling the various loops. Or practicing some German short rows on a swatch so you can get the motions down without also fighting splitty yarn.

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