Sleeves

Well let's make some sleeves. Again we're going to knit these 2 pieces at the same time so we end up with identical sleeves. I'm using a cast on of 19 stitches for both sizes but realize if your bear is tubbier or has thicker arms you'll need to adjust bigger anyway.

Sleeves

CO 19
Work in rib for 3 rows
Next row P
Next row K
Next row P
Next row K including 1 stitch at the beginning and end of row
Repeat the last 4 rows twice
Continue in straight stitch until the sleeves are long enough for your bear

I can easily see if the sleeve will be long enough.

And when they are just bind off all stitches.

I'll get the sleeves sewed on over the weekend using the ladder stitch and sew up the sides with an overhand stitch. Next week I'll show you the neck and front button band.

Hey, you shouldn't miss the new Avatar movie, it just came out on DVD. My kids loved it. It was such a decent film with a good message. Prepare to be swept away into another world.

Back to Business

No, I didn't change the color of the sweater I've just knitted up a demonstration for you. I'm about to sew the shoulder seams of the teddy bear sweater. I like to do this now because I can lay the sweater over the bear and more accurately measure for the sleeves. Now for that revelation I alluded to in the last sweater post. You remember the good old ladder stitch we used when sewing the bear seams, well that's what we're going to use here. I've always hated how two bound off edges sewed up. They never seemed right to me. I discovered that by using our trusty ladder stitch, this seam, like the bear seams, would become invisible. Happy Day!

Instead of putting the fronts of your pieces together, lay them side by side just like those teddy bear seams.

You'll notice that it's easy to make uniform stitches by picking up your knit stitches right under the cast offs.

Were you come up on one side go directly over and into the other.

Make several ladder stitches...

and pull,

a few more,

pull.

Sew to the end and pull, beautiful.

Let me quickly demonstrate what you don't want to do. I'm using an easy overhand stitch.

I'm sewing under the bound off stitches.

The back,

the front, yuck.

This stitch will be fine for the side seams so don't count it out. We're just talking about those seams that were bound off.

Here's the sweater waiting on sleeves. Unless something comes up we'll do them tomorrow.