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How to make a large size sweater when your machine does not have enough needles

Sample to be knit on the LK100 that only has 100 needles, unless you add more sections to this machine, it is not feasible, but there is a way to make it with a little more work

I am using schematic's from KnitWare for the largest size available, size 56 but with ease of the final chest measurement will be almost 120 inches.

As you see, the front and back both start out with 130 needles. So you can take the side sections and make those separately. Subtract 16 from 130 and you have 114. Still not enough to get it to work. I need 7 more sts added to the side section. So now the shoulder part of the sweater will be 27 stitches instead of 34.

You can take the pattern from KnitWare and do some finagling to get it to work but I would just have the back and front sections to work straight with no shaping except for the neckline. In this case I chose the square neckline.

As you see, I have changed the back and front to be 100 stitches wide. The rows will be the same as you see.

But now as you look at the original schematic's, the shoulders do not have the same amount of stitches. I changed that also so that I can graft the shoulder seams with less bulk than sewing them.

But now you need to make the sides so that it will fit the person intended.

As per the drawing below, I have 17 stitches to cast on, one may want to add 2 sts for the seaming part, but not really necessary as the ease added should be enough.

As I had to take an extra 7 stitches from the shoulder area, I will need to add rows to the sleeve to compensate for that. In this case I will need 10 more rows added to the sleeve top. You may get different results as your gauge is what matters.

My video on taking a schematic to make your own pattern can be something else you can do. Try viewing it in Full Screen Mode. Press the Esc key to go back to normal.

(c)Roberta Rose Kelley, 2011 All rights reserved