Don’t be Afraid of Knitting in the Round

Yarn Academy recently did a three-part series on knitting in the round, covering common fears about knitting in the round, challenging those fears with facts and providing additional benefits of knitting in the round.

Circular knitting is great because it produces seamless fabric that can be shaped to fit body parts, whether those parts are feet or heads or fingers. Sweaters at least seem to get done a lot faster when you don’t have a ton of finishing to do, and the knitting seems to go faster because a lot of the time you may just be knitting (if you’re making Stockinette Stitch).

There are some downsides to circular knitting. Stripes and other colorwork have jogs instead of making perfect lines (there are ways to minimize this). It’s difficult to work intarsia in the round. A full sweater can get heavy while you’re knitting it all in one piece.

But still, I think it’s great to know how to knit circularly, whether with a circular needle, on double-pointed needles, using one long circular (or two circulars) or even a tiny circumference circular. There are so many different ways to try you’re sure to find one that you like.

Do you have a favorite method of circular knitting? I’d love to hear about it!

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If you’re new to lace knitting or just aren’t sure how to incorporate the technique into garments, check out these tops and sweaters that use lace as a decorative element.

The easiest lace out there is eyelets, and you can practice them plenty with this eyelet covered sweater from Knitcro Addict. It uses light/DK weight yarn and is worked in four pieces knit flat. It’s intended to be a little cropped and a little oversized, and includes sizes XS to XXL in the pattern.

If you’re in parts of the world where it’s getting colder as you read this, the Nora sweater from Bummbul might be a good choice. This is actually a great one for learning lace because it’s worked in super bulky yarn, which makes it easier to see what you’re doing and makes the lace super graphic. This one just comes in one size, with a 42 inch (106) cm bust, but that could fit a variety of people depending on how much ease you like.

Minimi Knit Design has a cute allover lace cardigan worked in one piece from the bottom up. It’s worked in lace weight mohair held double, which maybe isn’t the best for those new to lace (because it can be hard to rip out) but it sure is pretty. Sizes range to fit from 30 to 66 inches/76 to 168 cm bust measurements.

If you’d rather not have lace all over your sweater, you can knit the Lumi sweater from Originally Lovely, which has a chevron lace pattern on the yoke and is otherwise worked in reverse stockinette stitch. (It’s worked inside out so you don’t have to purl every stitch.) The pattern has 9 sizes from XS to 5XL and uses worsted weight yarn.

Or try the super romantic sookie blouse from Trust the mojo (available on Ravelry). This sweet top is started working flat from the bottom up and has a V-neck and I-cord edgings. The sleeves are worked separately in the round, and the pieces are all joined together to work in one piece to finish off the top. It comes in eight sizes and is available in English and French.

You can also pair lacy sleeves with an otherwise plain top, like on the Starflower Wrap from Annelise Driscoll Gingrow. This intermediate pattern makes a wrap sweater with generous lacy sleeves and a double wrap belt. The pattern has nine sizes, from XS to 5XL, and is available for free from Hobbi.

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