Carabe KAL Tips

The “official” start date for the Carabe Knit Along is tomorrow (Sunday) but if you want to start earlier or need to start later, we’re not picking about it. Just join in the fun and end up with a gorgeous sweater. It may be only Amy, Linda and myself doing it but others are welcome to participate or just read along for when you may want to make your own Carabe.

I will be using Malabrigo Rios, which is one of my favorite yarns. Yes, yarn is like food — I love it all!  🙂 This sweater is for a friend who is a big Auburn fan so it will be orange with navy stripe.

Yarn for Carabe

This morning I wound enough yarn to get me started and read over the pattern. Here are a couple of notes I made to myself after making Nicole and Addie’s Carabes.

1. When you begin, you’re knitting two stitches on the left and right  inside the markers. These will later be increased and will become the sleeves. As you’re knitting these two stitches, knit them just a tad looser than you normally knit. Don’t leave honking big gaps but just don’t snug them up real tight. You’re increasing on the wrong and right side rows somethings and that will cause a bit of puckering if these stitches are real tight. The puckering will easily block out if your stitches aren’t real tight. It’s almost like, if you sew clothes, when you gather the sleeves to sew them in. You will have a gentle curve but hopefully no obvious puckering.
2. When you get to page 4, the right hand column, just above the first box of numbers — we’ve been knitting the RS and purling the WS but on that last row before the numbers box (Set-up Row 2 WS) – that’s a knit row on the WS. On both Nicole and Addie’s sweaters, I didn’t pay attention, purled that row and had to rip back.

If you have questions or suggestions, you may leave a comment here, or send an email, and then I’ll answer it in a post or all to see.