Joining the Fronts and Back on Myrna

OAL_Myrna_UA_Flat

After you’ve knit the fronts, your sweater will look like this. It doesn’t look much like a sweater, but once you fold it at the shoulder “seam” at the cast on edge, remove the scrap yarn, and put the pieces on the needles in the right order…

OAL_Myrna_UA_Needles

Suddenly it all makes sense! Right now the fronts and back are on my needles, but they’re still completely separate. They’ll get joined together when I cast on for the underarms.

OAL_Myrna_UA_CO

I knit across the left front, and then I cast on stitches using the back loop cast on. I picked that one because it’s easy to do, but any single strand cast on method will work here. You could use the cabled cast on, the knitted cast on, or whatever. We’re going to pick up stitches from this edge later on and you won’t be able to see the CO, so the exact method isn’t an important detail. You just need to get the stitches on your needle.

OAL_Myrna_UA_Back

With my underarm cast on, it’s time to join the back. To join it, all I do is knit into the first stitch on the back and keep going using the same strand of yarn I used to knit the front and cast on the underarms. That’s it. That strand of yarn will connect everything, and although things might be loose and weird at that spot right now, it will get reinforced when we pick up stitches later for the sleeve.

OAL_Myrna_UA_Joined

The right front gets joined just like the back did, and now all of the sections of the cardigan are on our needle and joined together. The rest of the body including the waist shaping is knit down from here.


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9 responses to “Joining the Fronts and Back on Myrna”

  1. Pretty excited about this project. I may be in over my head because I have never knitted a sweater before (only a few scarfs with mixed results) so I am taking private lessons as I go. Fingers crossed. Can’t wait to finished my first sweater and see everyone’s finished projects! Thanks so much for the motivation and the cutest pattern ever!

  2. I’m thinking this is going to be my favorite pattern of yours, and that’s saying a lot cause I love all of them.

  3. Charlotte

    Hi Andi,

    My Myrna is coming along nicely and very speedily & she looks good. As someone who always overthinks things, im already considering the picking up for the button band. Will you be having a blog post on the ratio of stitches to pick up along the cardi fronts? (I know the pattern says how many stitches should be picked up, but I wonder if you do 2 for every 3 rows, or 3 for every 4 rows… ) If so, I’ll wait for that and get cracking with my frock.

    Many thanks for the OAL, I’m really enjoying it & living in the North East of England, you (almost) always need an emergency cardi, even in the height of summer!

    Best

    Charlotte

    1. I covered button bands in a previous post, so I’m not planning on writing about that again. If you look at the “Useful Posts” page that’s linked to at the top, you can see the technical posts I’ve already written.

      1. Charlotte

        Excellent! Thank you.

        C

  4. camelia

    Hi Andi, I am busy with the waist shaping but I found the armholes looking so strange ( 🙂 I am a beginner in the knitting world having only the miette and the peggy cardi done) so I stopped and made a sleeve, almost finished that, I am at the eyelets now, so I was thinking, maybe is really stupid , but would be awkward to put long sleeves on Myrna and would be that really complicated, I have no idea if you are going to cover this in the OAL.
    Thanks a lot for the OAL .
    Regards,
    Camelia

    1. I won’t be covering modifications that involve a bit of math like altering the sleeves. The idea behind these posts is to make the pattern a little easier to follow, and modifications are a whole other can of worms.

  5. Hi, Andi! I’m making a size L Myrna, and have finished the upper back and started the upper right front. I’ve picked up 16 st, and then it says to w&t after 8 st. The following lines say to knit & purl to end; does this mean just the 8 before the w&t, or should I be picking up the wrap and knitting all 16 st?

    1. When you work to the end, you should work all the way to the end of the row, not just to the w&t.

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