Cake Addict

Monday, February 06, 2006

I don't get it

Hmmm... I'm making Chick from Rowan Classic Babies and am a bit confused. It's a cardigan, so you knit the back, left front, right front and sleeves and then join and knit the collar. Like this:





















I've finished the back and am doing the left front. You cast on 33 stitches and then knit in moss stitch for a few rows. Then you knit 5 stitches in moss stitch and place them on a stitch holder and continue across the row in moss stitch. You then work the 28 stitches for a certain number of inches and then bind off.

Later on you're supposed to go back and pick up the 5 stitches on the stitch holder and "rejoin yarn with RS facing. Cont in moss st until band, when slightly stretched, fits up left front opening edge to neck shaping, ending with RS facing for next row. Break yarn and leave sts on a holder. Slip st band in place."

Uh, I don't get it. This isn't my first sweater but the way the pattern goes about doing the button holes confuses me. As I understand it, you keep knitting back and forth across those 5 stitches and are left with a detached vertical strip. (Does that make sense?) So how to do get the button band attached to the left front??? What does "slip st band in place" mean?

I'm assuming that I'm completely missing something. Does anyone have any suggestions? And while I have your attention, do you guys do swatches for baby stuff? I'm completely lazy and figure that with baby stuff it doesn't really matter but then I get annoyed if it seems too small- which it always does because I'm in the running for The Tightest Knitter on Earth title.