Premie Standard Gauge Machine Knit Ballet Sweater

 

(Midgauge Baby Ballet can be found on the right side of the blog.  This one is a little shorter.)

 I'm in the process of knitting baby stuff to donate.  This is a super easy one for premies and if it weren't for all the yarn ends would go super fast.  Some suggestions for those pesky things below.

Skill Level:  Beginner 

Machine:  Standard 4.5 mm gauge

                        No ribber needed

Yarn:  Any that knits close to gauge.  My yarn is pretty skinny.

Gauge:  8 stitches and 12 rows to one inch at T7                                                                                                                

            If you want to knit this but your yarn obtains a different gauge, you can do the math.  First, knit a gauge swatch with your yarn.

            Formula:  Pattern’s rows or stitches and DIVIDE them by this pattern’s gauge, then take this figure TIMES the NEW gauge you obtained    (do the same for stitches and rows)

 

            EXAMPLE

            stitches in the pattern back 44 divided by 8 stitches per inch =5.5

            your gauge ex 4st to an inch x 5.5 = 22 st

            So instead of casting on 44 st, cast on 22

In some cases you will want to round up or down. For increases and decreases, look at the end of the piece and spread out increases or decreases to get to the correct amount.  Fairly easy on this tiny garment, a little trickier on large ones.

 

Finished size (Just one size)  width of back 5.5”, length  4.5”, sleeve 3.0”  (can be rolled up to make a  little cuff) 

Here are the DAK schematics for the pattern:

 

            (make one, reverse one)

This is a Designaknit produced pattern.  How to read:

The format is Row # --Decrease or increase so many stitches --every so many rows --So many times.

Example:  On the front, on row 28, decrease one stitch every two rows twice, so you decrease one stitch on row 28, knit 2 rows and decrease again one stitch on row 30.  If it helps, you can write down the in-between row decreases.

Hints – Unfortunately there are a lot of ends to work in.  You can either wait until finishing and work them in or try to weave them in as you go by hanging the end over every other needle before you knit the row.  You can also save some ends by leaving a long one at the bottom of the piece to seam with.  RC stands for row count.

FF means full fashioned.  This is why the front edges don’t roll.  To decrease, move the 4^th stitch from the edge to the 3^rd, the move all 3 stitches in to fill the empty needle.  To increase, move 3 stitches out one needle, then take the purl bump on an adjacent stitch and hang it on the empty needle so that there is no hole.

DIRECTIONS IN WORDS

*****For all pieces, do the 4 row rolled hem at a tighter tension (T3) then change to T7 and RC000 to start the schematic.*****

Back

With waste yarn, cast on 44 stitches.  Knit several rows at looser tension.

With main yarn ewrap left to right.  Change to T 3.  Knit 4 rows (might be a little tight). 

RC 000 Change to T 7 and knit to RC  29.  Bind off 3 stitches,  knit one row.

On row 30 bind off 3 stitches.  Knit to RC 54.  Take off these stitches in 3 parts. Put all stitches in hold, machine to hold.

For the first shoulder take off 12 stitches on several rows of waste yarn.  Remove from machine.

Bind off the next 30 stitches, decreasing one stitch on the 10^th and 20^th needle. Remove from machine.

Take machine off hold and take off the last 12 stitches on several rows of waste yarn.  Remove from machine.

 

Fronts:  Make one and reverse one.

With waste yarn, cast on 42 stitches.  Knit several rows at looser tension.

With main yarn ewrap left to right.  Change to T 3.  Knit 4 rows (might be a little tight). 

RC 000 Change to T 7 and follow the schematics using full fashioned decreases.  On row 30 for right side and 29 for left side (next to carriage) bind off 3 stitches and continue with the other side ff decreases. Knit to RC 54 and take the 12 st off on waste yarn.

Sleeves

With waste yarn, cast on 28 stitches.  Knit several rows at looser tension.

With main yarn ewrap left to right.  Change to T 3.  Knit 4 rows (might be a little tight). 

RC 000 Change to T 7 and knit to RC  17. Increase ff  one stitch both sides.  Knit to RC 34.  Increase ff one stitch both sides.  You now have 32 stitches.  Knit to RC 35 and take off on several rows of waste yarn.

Finishing

Join the shoulder stitches.  Put your carriage on the left.  With the right side of the back piece facing you, hang one set of 12 shoulder stitches.  With the wrong side of one matching front, hang the 12 shoulder stitches. Pull  the needles out and push the knitting to the back so that the stitches knit off properly.  Knit one row and bind off.  (I like to bind off around gate pegs to get the bind offs even.)

Do the same for the other shoulder.

Join the sleeves.  Put your carriage on the left.  With the right side of one sleeve facing you, hang the 32 stitches.  If you hang 16 on the left of zero and 16 on the right, it’s easier to get the seam to come out right.  This is a little tricky.  With the wrong side of the sweater facing you, hang the shoulder seam at zero.  With a 3 prong tool to measure out nicely, pick up  whole stitches from the body.  Skip a stitch of the garment and hang the next 3 stitches.  Try really hard to stick your tool in the same ditch every time.   Looks wonky if you don’t.                                                             

Continue picking up until all sleeve stitches have been attached to the body.  Now take a ruler and measure from the bottom of the sweater to the underarm.  Over on the other side, begin hanging stitches at the same place so that the front and back are not off kilter.  Fill in the stitches until all sleeve stitches are loaded up.

Pull all needles out and push knitting back so that the stitches knit off properly.  Knit one row left to right and bind off.

Do the same on the other side.

TIES  -  You need 4

Pick up 3 stitches at a corner of the garment.  Hang a wt on the garment.  At T 6 Knit 60 rows.  If you want to knit an I cord, push in one part button and knit 120 rows.  Just knitting the tie plain causes it to roll and it’s not too distinguishable from an I cord and goes faster.  Bind off by putting the two outer stitches on the center, cut the yarn and pull through to bind off/ fasten off.

Make 3 more , one at each corner.

SEAM

Mattress stitch the sides and the sleeves.  Run in yarn ends. Wash in detergent that doesn’t have perfume.

Steam a little if you think it’s necessary.

Donate to your favorite hospital or charity.  Might want to put your donation in a plastic bag to keep it clean.

 

Now I need to come up with a quick boys' pattern.

 

Baby Elf Hat on the standard gauge machine

 

I wanted to give this hat pattern a Norwegian name.  So, I tried the Google translation service  for English to Norwegian and here are some suggestions.  Not sure which would be most true.

Maybe a Norwegian speaking person could help me out.

Anyway, here’s my first attempt at a 3-6 month hat.  Pretty cute. The size seems ok, but I don’t have a baby to try it on. So this is my best guess. Will be donated, so size isn’t crucial right now. Finished dimensions (including ribs) are width at tip 6”, width above ribbing 5”, top to bottom of the neck 6”.

Yarn: from my stash, acrylic. Use something that gets close to this gauge. Mine had no label.

Machine:  standard gauge with ribber

Gauge for stockinette:  31 st = 4” and 37 rows = 4”  @T 7.  Kinda weird, I know but close is ok I would think. 

Directions:

Overview… (knit from front of face to back of head)

1.     75 needles 1 x 1 rib.  Do Susan Gualiumi’s nifty cast on for rib.  My new bestie because it lies perfectly flat, no flare, but is still stretchy.

 Use the manual’s cast on with waste yarn, (zig zag row) insert rib comb, add one barrel weight in the middle,  do 3 rows circular, cancel circular and knit about 1” of rib with this waste yarn.  Tension doesn’t matter so much here. Change back to circular and k the last 2 rows with ravel cord.  Snip waste yarn and ravel cord. It’s ok if you forget to switch to ravel cord, but it’s harder to remove at the end than it is when you use ravel cord. 

2.     Main part.  With main yarn, T6/6 do the manual’s cast on again and knit  12 rows ribbing.

3.    Change to regular sinker plate and transfer rib stitches to main bed.  Knit stockinette at T7 to RC 38, which should be about  5”.

4.    Begin short rowing so that you get the elvish point at the back of the head. Important to weight the knitting so the stitches don't pop off.  Set machine to hold.   *CAR put 7 N in hold at the left of the knitting. Knit across, wrap the end st so you don’t get a hole.  Put 7 needles on right in hold.  Knit across to the right and wrap the end st.* Continue from * to * until you have 5 stitches left in work.  Put 2 in hold, knit across and wrap, put two on right in hold, knit to the right. 

5.    Put all stitches back in work (or just undo the hold setting) and knit 2 rows.  Bind off.

6.     Stitch the back of the head seam by hand.

7.    Bottom neck ribbing.  With the wrong side of the knitting facing you, stretch out the bottom of the hat to pick up 70 stitches.  Try to pick up in the ditch between stitches at the same place across.  Knit 2 rows stockinette at T 10.

8.    Change sinker plate to rib, transfer every other stitch to ribber.  At T 6/6, rib 12 rows.  Transfer rib stitches to main bed and bind off with your favorite bind off technique.  On this one I did around the gate pegs. 

9.    I cord Straps:  I know some object to ties, but many babies do live after having had their hats tied under their chins, so I’m going with it.  If you have another method, have at it.

Pick up 4 stitches at the bottom corner of one front.  Set carriage to slip one way, knit the other.  (Brother, one part button.) At T 9 knit 150 rows and bind off.  Same for other side.  Hide yarn ends and tie a knot at the ends of the ties.

Remove the waste yarn.  There are a few yarn ends to hide. I did not steam the hat to block it, but you may want to.

Notes: You may also want to add a tassel or a pompom to the point of the hat and to the I cord ends.  A fairisle pattern would be nice too.  Because the seam at the back of the head can be bulky, next time I will take the top off on waste yarn and kitchener stitch the seam shut. This is an easy knit and a good way to practice short rowing if you are not used to doing that technique.  I wouldn't say this is a fast knit because of the transfers between beds, but worth it, I think. If you don't have a ribber, a hung hem would do.

Sweater Vest for Preemies

I am in search of a project for charity for 2020.  I like to do multiples of the same pattern to make life easy on myself.  Last year it was hats, and I’m over that for a while, even though they were super fast.  This little vest took me an hour to knit and about a half hour to sew all together.  I’m hoping I get faster at it.

Came upon this pattern on the Long Buckby Machine Knitters website a while ago and thought it was such a good idea.  I do want to give credit since this is such an innovative idea.  Seems useful.  The body warmer/vest is for low birth weight babies or those with lines in their arms in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital.  Having no sleeves, the vest wouldn’t interfere with the medical intervention.

Of course, like most machine (and maybe hand) knitters, I had to change the pattern a bit. Specifically, I decreased more stitches at the shoulders. Also I didn’t add anything decorative to the body since I wanted this to be speedy.  This is my first draft of the revised pattern, the one I used to knit the vest in the picture.  I am contemplating making the armholes shorter/smaller, but maybe is ok the way it is since the baby would have a sleeper under it.

Machine- standard gauge

Yarn- basically any that works with your machine.  Size isn’t so critical, it will turn out to be a mini size.  Although wool would be warm, acrylic is probably the best choice for easy laundering.  Only takes a few ounces.

Gauge- At tension 7, I got about 7 stitches and 9 rows to the inch on the stockinette, resulting in the vest being about 6 inches wide after the bottom rib and about 6 inches long.  Notice I’m a tad vague here.  J

You will also need 3 small buttons and sewing thread

DIRECTIONS

This is knit in one piece up to the armholes.

RC 000  1 x 1 Rib over 83 stitches, end stitches on the main bed.  After cast on change to T 2/2, knit 10 rows for the rib,  then transfer stitches to the main bed. Attach main carriage. Increase one stitch to 84 stitches.  If you don’t have a ribber, you could do mock rib or a hung hem. Just a word about hung hems on such a small garment, though.  Tried it, even drastically changing the underside of the hem to be tighter---it tends to flip up.  You are certainly welcome to try other hems, though.

Body knit to RC 36.

Armhole and Shoulder  (Be sure to pass the carriage far enough to register the rows. ) Put machine on hold.  Put all stitches in hold except for the 17 stitches on the right end of the machine.  Very furthest stitches on the right end up to be the center of the vest.  Use a full fashioned decrease.  On RC 37 decrease one stitch on left and one stitch on the right.  Knit 2 rows.  RC  39  decrease one stitch on left and one stitch on the right.  Knit 2 rows.  Decrease one stitch on the right only now every 2 rows until you have 10 stitches left.  Knit to RC 64.  Take these stitches off on several rows of waste yarn.

Other armhole and shoulder:  Since your stitches and machine are in hold you can scoot your carriage to the other side of the bed with no dropping of stitches. Repeat what you did on the first shoulder, reversing the shaping.  Take these 10 stitches also off on several rows of waste yarn.

Back Turn the row counter back to 36.  Take the machine off hold.  Knit one row.  Bind off 8 stitches at the beginning of  each of the next 2 rows. Now you have 34 stitches for the back.

Knit plain to RC 64. Put machine on hold, stitches to hold except for the far right 10 stitches.  Take these stitches off on several rows of waste yarn.

Carriage to the other side of the bed.  Put 10 stitches in work and take these stitches off on several rows of waste yarn.

Bind off around the gate pegs these back neck stitches with main yarn.

Join the shoulders  With the right (stockinette ) side facing you, fold back the waste yarn of the shoulder so you can see the purl bumps.  Hang the 10 shoulder stitches, needles all the way out and stitches pushed back.  Fold garment so wrong side is facing you, with the matching shoulder, hang the 10 shoulder stitches in the hooks of the needles.  Close the latches and with a straight edge push the stitches in the hooks through the back stitches.  Use the latch tool to bind off around the gate pegs.  Repeat for the other shoulder.

Button band Do a 1 x 1 rib over 9 needles (5 on main bed and 4 on the ribber).  After the cast on, change to T 2/2 RC 000 and knit 4 rows.  (Super easy buttonhole) *Make a buttonhole by transferring the middle stitch on the main bed to an adjacent stitch on the ribber.  Leave the main bed needle in work.  Knit 12 rows.* Repeat two more times for 3 buttonholes total.  (Row 4, 16, and 28)  Knit to RC 140. Do a loop through loop bind off so the end looks sorta like the beginning.  To do this, transfer the rib stitches to the main bed.  Knit the last row right to left at T 6.  Pull the second stitch through the first across the bed using the larch tool. Fasten off the last loop.

BTW,  I purchased a rib comb that accommodates 60 stitches and it’s ideal for small ribs like this of only 9 stitches. Much lighter weight than the regular ribber comb. Well worth it.  Otherwise you have to use a big clunky ribber comb that came with your ribber, or devise some other method of holding down the stitches.

If you are making this without a ribber you could hang the front stitches all the way around.  Remember to add 3 button holes.

Finishing Sorry there are so many ends to work in.  Will see if I can minimize this.  Remove waste yarn at the shoulders. Find the middle of the rib strip  and the middle of the back neck. Depending on which side you put the buttonholes, you can indicate boy or girl, but this seems unimportant to me.   Pin the mid points together so the band sits evenly.  Mattress stitch the rib to the vest.   Work in the yarn ends.  Sew on 3 small buttons with sewing thread.

I didn’t steam this, but you could. It is recommended to wash without perfume in the detergent or dryer sheets. Put in a sandwich bag to keep clean when donating. 

Thanks to the Long Buckby machine knitters for inspiring me!  Let me know if you give this a try and any modifications you did.

Baby Pants to accompany Baby Ballet Sweater

This might be turning out to be a once in a year submission.  Don't you hate it when people do that?  I'll try to be better, but no promises.

Today I'm posting a pattern that you can make to accompany the Baby Ballet sweater.  The sweater turned out to be popular with beginning knitters.  It didn't require a lot of fancy footwork and when the directions were followed, you ended up with a nice product.  That pattern can be accessed by clicking on the picture on the right side of the blog. To complete an outfit, you can knit these pants also.

Machine:  kx350,  LK 150, Silver Reed 860  MIDGAUGE MACHINE

Yarn:  Sport to lt.worsted, acrylic.  If you want to use cotton, knit it into a large rectangle, wash and dry to pre-shrink and wind again.

Other:  19 (20) inches of one inch wide elastic (allowing for seaming into a circle)

Gauge:  T 5  ----5 stitches and 6 rows to 1 inch

Finished sizes:  6 (12) months.  Width at seamed tummy area 24 (26) inches around.    Length after cuff and before waistband 17 (18) inches, width of ankle area 9.2 (10) inches, length after cuff to crotch 10 (10.5) inches, length from crotch to top before hem 7 (7.5) inches. If you think you need longer pants for a particular baby, you could knit more rows on the straight knitting between the crotch and waistband and/or after the increases and before the crotch bind off.

Directions: Knit two legs the same directions 1 through 3.

1     Hem.  Ewrap Cast on 46 (50 ) stitches every other needle, leaving a long tail for seaming.  Hang your cast on comb and some weights.  Leave out of work N out of work for the length of the cuff.  Knit 18 (18) rows at T 2.  Take the cast on comb and weights so you can hang a hem on the empty needles. (Using your one prong tool, hang the beginning stitches onto the empty needles across the bed.)

2    Leg. Hang 2 claw weights again.  Bring all needles to work, change to T 5.  Start the chart for the size needed.  See note below if you need help reading this kind of chart.

3    Waistband. [Hint:  If you find it difficult to see which loop to hang, when you start the waistband, run a different colored yarn along with the main yarn for just this first row of the waistband.  To hang, look for the horizontal loops that have this extra color.  Remove the extra yarn later.]  After you complete the length of the leg indicated by the chart, transfer every other needle to neighbor and put the emptied needles out of work for the length of the waistband.  T2 knit 20 rows.  Hang a hem from the loops formed when you switched to every other needle and bind off really loosely.  Take a ruler or a hand knitting needle and pull out the mock hem stitches to set them.   Now knit the other leg.

4    Seam.   Seam the inner leg (including cuff) with a mattress stitch, both legs.  Match crotch seams and sew up one tummy seam then the butt seam, including waistband except for back side of one side of the waistband.  You need this open to be able to insert the elastic.

5    Elastic waistband.  Don’t cut yarn tail yet. Insert elastic with a large safety pin, overlap by ½ inch when you get it all the way around and remove safety pin.  Sew securely.  Finish seaming the knitted back side of waist band with yarn tail.  Hide any yarn tails remaining. 

How to read the DAK-style chart:

                       Example following the size 6 months.   For this particular pattern,  first you knit the cuff. Then, 0(46) means you haven’t knit any rows yet of the leg.   Here you'll already have every other needle across left 23 to right 23.   Once the cuff is completed, all needles are brought into work.  Begin following the shaping directions.  Another Example 31:+1S 4 X 7 means at row counter 31, increase 1 stitch every 4 rows 7 times.  (For this pattern, do a full fashioned increase)  so you would increase both sides one stitch on row counter 31, 35, 39, 43, 47, 51, 55.  When the piece is a mirror image left to right, I just read the one side.  If you want, you can write down the row numbers and check off the decreases or increases on the pattern to help you remember where you are.  Crotch numbers (rows 59 and 60) should be done opposite of what the chart says because for odd numbers your carriage is on the left and for even numbers it’s on the right.  You need the carriage on the same side as you are binding off.  I don’t know why my DAK program does it that way.

Six months:

12 months:

The directions for a full fashioned increase are in the sweater pattern.  Do this so that the edges are easy to seam.  

Pretty easy, yes?  This is a good pattern for charity or a gift.  Sell the finished product if you are so inclined.  Hope you find this as satisfying as the sweater.

Machine Knit Baby Rib Warmer

It's been a while.  I actually did get my machine knitting mojo back and have been doing a ton of charity knitting, but not blogging.    I've been making baby rib warmers.  They are cute cute cute and really easy.  I'm sharing the pattern here and you can use a midgauge, bulky or standard gauge machine to knit these.  Mine will be going to a church in Arkansas that distributes things to needy people.  Hopefully you'll make some for charity too, but I don't mind if you knit for a gift for a special baby.

Baby Rib Warmer ©2015

by Mar Heck  

NOTES:  Directions are given for Midgauge or Bulky with Standard gauge machine in parenthesis.  There is no shaping required because the ribbing pulls in the knitting to make the yoke shape and armholes. So if you have a ribber, this is a fairly fast knit. If you need to hand manipulate the ribbing, it will take a little longer.  Because I have a ribber for my Silver Reed 860 midgauge, I used a 2 x 2 rib in the yellow pictured example.  I used a Brother 970 with ribber for the standard gauge blue example pictured.  If you need to hand latch the ribbing, it would save a little time if you did a 2 x 1 rib.  Check your manual or You Tube for how to latch ribbings. Note that the rib tension is the same as the stockinette.  I think the pattern would be suitable for a boy or girl baby.  I didn’t attempt to do the sweater in mock rib, but that might be worth a try too if you don’t possess a ribber.

Yarn-  whatever yarn gets the same gauge as listed or your garment may come out a completely different shape,  For the sample I used Lion Brand Pound of Love pale yellow, just a few ounces.  On the standard gauge machine, I used Mary Lou’s Symphony, also a small amount.

Machine – midgauge or bulky with standard in parenthesis, ribber if you have one

Gauge- on mid or bulky 4 stitches and 6 rows to one inch; for standard 7 stitches and 10 rows to one inch.  Tension dial will depend on the yarn you use to get this gauge.  Knit a swatch to determine that.  For both samples I used tension 7, but your machine may be different.

Finished Size – about 10 inches wide and 10 inches tall for a 6 to 12 month baby.  For other sizes add or subtract an inch each direction.

Directions

BACK

Cast on 40 (70) stitches in your favorite method for ribbing doing 2 x 2 rib at  (T7/7). Use the same tension as you will use on the stockinette part.  If you have a smaller rib cast on comb, use that so that it doesn’t pull down so hard. Because there are fewer stitches than on an adult garment, you won’t need so much weight but still some so that the stitches knit off.

 RC 000  Knit 6 (10) rows rib.  Transfer rib stitches to main bed and change to regular carriage for stockinette.  Knit stockinette stitch to RC 38 (66).  Change to rib carriage and transfer every other 2 st to ribber for ribbing,.  Knit to row 60 (100), transfer rib stitches to main bed and bind off (not too tight).

LEFT FRONT

Cast on 20 (36) stitches in your favorite method for ribbing doing 2 x 2 rib at (T7/7). RC000  Knit 6 (10) rows rib.  Transfer rib stitches to main bed and change to regular carriage for stockinette.  Knit stockinette stitch to RC 38 (66).  Change to rib carriage and transfer every other two stitches to ribber for ribbing,.  Knit to RC 47 (79).  For neck, bind off 10 (16) stitches.  On remaining 10 (20) stitches knit to RC 60 (100).  Transfer rib stitches to main bed. Bind off these 10 (20) shoulder stitches.

RIGHT FRONT

Same as left front except knit to RC 48 (80) to bind off neck stitches so that the carriage is on the correct side for binding off.

FRONT EDGING

I used what I call the “2 Row Wonder” for the front edges.  It is nice for baby cardi’s because it’s dainty and helps the edge lie flat.  It’s easy to incorporate buttonholes by skipping stitches from the garment as you are hanging garment stitches. 

Hold the edge up to the machine without stretching to get an estimate of how many stitches you’ll need.  With the wrong side of the edge facing you, pick up whole stitches from the garment and hang on the needles.  You may need to skip a garment stitch now and then because you are matching stitches to rows.  Also, for girls, put a button hole (or evenly spaced button holes) on the garment’s right front and on the left for a boy.

 After you knit one front’s edge, write down the number of stitches you picked up so that the other side turns out the same.  Also, try to get to the very edge of the ribbings on both sides so that the edge extends all the way. 

Push the needles all the way out on the first row to aid the carriage in knitting.  After the first row, when a loop is formed for the buttonhole, hang it on the needle above.   Knit two rows total at garment tension.  Carriage is on the right.  Bind off around the gate pegs.  If your machine doesn’t have gate pegs, pull a needle out to act as a gate peg to even out the stitches and make the rope-like stitch.  The yarn goes to the right of this needle.

FINISHING 

Stitch shoulder seams.  Mattress stitch side seams up to the point where the yoke ribbing starts.  Hide yarn ends and sew on a button (buttons) securely.  If the fronts need a little steam to lie flat, be sure to not touch the yarn if you are using an iron.

If you can’t achieve my gauge, use this schematic and some math to achieve the same size as I did.

  Interesting note…now that I have taken pictures, I see that my midgauge machine knits at a different tension every other row!!! Not too happy about this, but I don’t know if there is anything to be done about it.  It’s too consistent to be my fault, right? Reminds me of hand knitting where the knitter uses a different tension on purl vs knit rows.  Actually, in person it doesn’t look so noticeable.  Cameras can be mean sometimes.  Truth hurts.  OH WELL…

Back view

I hope you enjoy the pattern.  Would
love to see a picture if you do knit it.