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A Trick to Make Seaming Shoulders Easier

October 14, by Sarah White. 5 Comments

How to use short rows to shape a shoulder.One of the disadvantages of knitting a pieced sweater is all the finishing that’s involved, and one of the most unpleasant duties when it comes to finishing a sweater is sewing in the sleeves.

One of the things that often causes problems when it comes to setting in sleeves is the stairstep nature of many sleeve designs. That shaping is there, as Gwen from 2 Sides 2 Points tells us, so that the shoulder seam will form a straight line from the neck along the shoulder. (Note, this article is now available through the Internet Archive, which might not always be the case.)

This is usually accomplished by making a stairstep bind off, which looks in the pattern like “BO x stitches at the beginning of next Y rows.” It’s easy to write a pattern that way, and it’s easy for the knitter to execute, but it’s not the best when it comes to seaming.

As is so often the case in knitting, the answer is short rows. Check out the article linked above for more on why short row shoulders are so great and how to convert a pattern written for stairstep shoulders into a short row shoulder.

It’s a really clever idea that will make seaming that much easier. (And if you’ve never worked short rows before, check out my tutorial at the Spruce. Disclaimer: I wrote this when it was still About, and haven’t worked there for years and am not responsible for edits or deletions.)

Have you ever done a short row shoulder? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via 2 Sides 2 Points.]

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Comments

  1. Marlene says

    December 29, 2017 at 10:34 pm

    I always do German short row shaping on my shoulders, but I don’t bind them off and sew them together. I hold the stitches until the corresponding shoulder is finished, then I bind off both shoulders together using the three needke bind off method. It makes a very flat seam with a little, but not too much, stretch.

  2. Sooz says

    August 24, 2018 at 7:50 pm

    Did I miss something? Where is the instruction on this?

  3. Sarah White says

    August 26, 2018 at 4:26 pm

    That page doesn’t seem to exist anymore, but here’s another page that talks about short-row shoulder shaping. https://www.sistermountain.com/blog/short-row-shoulders

  4. Karen Richardson says

    March 12, 2020 at 4:56 am

    How do you do german short rows for a kite shaped scarf ?

  5. P says

    September 21, 2020 at 10:16 pm

    I do my shoulders the same Marlene does. German Short Row shaping and connecting back to front with a 3-needle bindoff. So neat and clean and no bothersome seaming.

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