Resources for Techniques
Please note that this page contains links to other knitting designers and shops who have generously provided useful information to the online community (that's you) in exchange for bringing you to their sites to see their designs, etc. Please take the time to look around while you're at their sites.
Provisional Cast On Shaping in Patterns with Companion Increases & Decreases Grafting in Garter StitchSteeking
Eunny Jang is known for her excellent tutorials, and this one tells and shows you everything you need to know about the steeking process.Lucy Neatby's take on steeking. If you go to her site, please take time to look at her designs in exchange for her providing this information for you.
Wendy Johnson's article on steeking in the Spring 2003 issue of Knitty.
Provisional Cast On
Once again, Eunny Jang's wonderful aid to provisional cast on -- scroll down to Invisible Crochet Cast On I and Invisible Crochet Cast On II -- you can use either method.Purl Bee has very nice photos of a simple crochet chain cast on, as well as many other useful knitting and crochet tutorials. Scroll down on the left side menu and choose the tutorial you want to see.
How to Handle Shaping in Areas with Companion Increases and Decreases
Sometimes when there are not enough stitches as a result of shaping to work a charted increase or decrease with its companion increase or decrease, you need to know how to accommodate this fact. For example, let's say you've got this chart:
You're working this chart as an allover pattern and you come to the part with armhole shaping. What happens if you are on Row 2 and you have eliminated stitches 1 and 2 of the chart with armhole shaping, and are supposed to continue working the pattern across the row? Well, think about it. If you're missing a Make 1 (which is supposed to add one stitch), but you still have to do the SSK (which decreases one stitch), your stitch count will be wrong at the end of the row if you work the SSK as charted. Why? Because this type of chart (which, by the way, is similar to a lace chart using yarnovers instead of M1) pairs every increase with a decrease across the row to maintain an even stitch count. Look at the chart again with the paired increases and decreases circled in red.
Notice that the companions are not always adjacent to each other, as in row 12 for example. In row 12 there are 5 sts between the first M1 and its companion decrease (SSK). So what do you do when you come to this situation? Whenever you have eliminated an increase or decrease, but not yet eliminated its companion increase or decrease, ignore the remaining part of the paired inc/dec and just work it in plain stockinette stitch. This handles the problem of incorrect stitch counts. Make sense? You may need to read it again or even knit a swatch to experiment with it before you understand it, but trust me, it works. (I had to try it before I really "got it" too.) And when you are adding stitches at the edges, as in shaping between waist and bust, this method works the same way. When you have added sts at the edge, but not yet enough to work the pattern repeat, just work the stitches in stockinette stitch. As soon as you have enough new edge stitches to allow the pattern to be worked without unpaired increases and decreases, then you can follow the chart again.
Grafting in Garter Stitch
Wikihow has a good explanation of how to do this. Scroll down to the section on garter stitch (item #4)FlexPattern is a trademark of Knitting Matters LLC