I know this may sound silly but what does reversing shapping mean in a knitting pattern?
I'm making a baby sweater and the shape neck section of the pattern says:
Left Front Patt (pattern) to last sts 8(9:10)sts., turn and leave these sts on a holder. Dec one at neck edge on every row unitl 16(19"21) sts rem. work straight until Front matches same as back to shoulder, ending at side edge. Shape shoulder Cast off 8(9:10) sts at beg of next row. Work 1 row. Cast off rem 8(9:10) sts.
How do I reverse the shaping the Right Front? I can never figure this out and I always avoid patterns that say this. I want to conquer this once and for all. Please help!
In crochet it is exactly the same but opposit. meaning if you decrease on the left for the left side then you decrease on the right for the right side and visa versa if you decreas on the right for the left side of the item then you decrease on the left for the right side mirror images. I do not knit I crochet but I believe it is similar concept
Actually your directions don't really need much changing that i can see, since the neck edge will be on the left side of the right front and right side of the left front...... In other words, if your directions say to do something at the neck edge, you don't need to reverse this direction for the other side, since you will still be doing it at the neck edge. Same way with the directions about the side edge - you will still be doing it on the side edge on the second half of the piece.
If you decreased at the beginning of the row (from the center)(on the knit row on the left front) then when you reach the shoulder and cast off you will break the yarn. Then you will half to start working on the right front, depending on which side you pick up to start again(at the neck edge or at the side edge) you might end up doing the neck decreasing at the END of the knit row (if you start at the side) or at the BEGINNING of the knit row (if you start at the center neck edge). All the instruction to reverse the shaping means is that as you work, the two sides of the piece will be the mirror image of each other.
I get more worried about when to use the SSK versus the K2TOG directions for decreasing - you want the stitches to slant one way on the left side and the opposite on the right side. I just always get mixed up about which one is which if the directions don't spell it out. But on a baby sweater there's usually so few decreases that it doesn't really matter all that much.
reversing shapping question in knitting
Posted - Jun 16 2006 : 6:43:17 PM
