May 14th, 2013

Tuesday’s Knitting Tip – 2-at-a-Time Sleeves

This week’s tip comes from Amy G, one of our store staff team members. She finds you can take the 2-at-a-Time skill generally used for socks, and apply it to other projects too, like the sleeves of a sweater.

“I often find the sleeves to be the most boring part of knitting a sweater, so I do them at the same time on a circular needle using two balls of yarn. Of course it only works for set-in sleeves, not sleeves picked up and knit from the shoulders, but it helps me finish my project instead of getting distracted and starting something new!”

Dena, our Ecommerce Marketing Manager, loves this technique. It can definitely get a little confusing though, so she adds a locking stitch marker to join the two pieces together. She finds this helps keep her from turning her work too soon.

Do you have any tricks to keep yourself from leaving a project half finished?

 

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 14th, 2013 at 8:39 am and is filed under Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • Sally

    I’ve used this technique before, but for a different reason. Working on both sleeves at once on the same needle helps ensure they are knit to the same length.

  • Kitten With A Whiplash

    Given a long enough cord, or better yet, using two circs, you CAN work sleeves from the shoulder down. I find it’s easiest to work the sleeves separately for an inch or two before switching to either method. Either way, stitch markers between sleeves are a good reminder to switch yarns.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kevin.lopez.39904 Kevin Lopez

    I have made baby booties 2@ a time and it move so much quicker than one at a time…

  • PurrlGurrl

    Amen. I’ve done it, too, so I only have to do all that increase row counting once for bottom-up sleeves and the sleeves turn out the same.

  • Marina

    I did it once but I found the two balls of yarn too distracting. Also, I made a pattern mistake and had to frog two sleeves instead of one. The sleeves are indeed the most boring thing, so I now they are the first thing I do :) .

  • lyknnits

    For sleeves knit from the shoulder down, I prefer to knit them both using the magic loop method. If the sleeves are knit separately, I like to do them first knit two at a time using the magic loop technique, also. I just makes the whole project seem to move along effortlessly.

  • Thredbende

    Connecting the two sleeves is brilliant! Thank you, Dena!