Short Rows You Say

Significant progress has been made on the Central Park Hoodie or CPH. I'm about ready to start the shoulder shaping and have decided to do short rows rather than binding off as the pattern describes. The sloped shoulder will look so much better than binding off and then seaming up the fronts and back. The live stitches will then be held & I'll seam the fronts and the back using the three needle bind off.

I'll end up with a sloped shoulder & an almost invisible seam...what's not to love about it? Now how will I do this when the pattern isn't written with short rows? Well you can find a tutorial here at Knitty that tells you how to 'rewrite' the pattern from binding off to short rows. It's really very simple in the case of the CPH. The size I'm doing tells me to bind off 6 stitches for 6 rows, but what I plan to do is knit to the last 6 sts then wrap & turn back, then I will follow my pattern until the last 6 sts where I'll wrap & turn back. I'll repeat this for each row...knitting up to 6 sts before the last wrap & turn for 6 rows.

So I have rewritten the shoulder section to look something like this:

Row 1(WS): follow pattern to last 6 sts, sl 1 pw, wyif, return sl st, move yarn to back and turn

Row 2(RS): follow pattern to last 6 sts, sl 1 pw, wyib, return sl st, move yarn to front and turn

Row 3(WS): follow pattern to last 12 sts, sl 1 pw, wyif, return sl st, move yarn to back & turn

Row 4(RS): follow pattern to last 12 sts, sl 1 pw, wyib, return sl st, move yarn to front and turn

Row 5(WS): follow pattern to last 18 sts, sl 1 pw, wyif, return sl st, move yarn to back & turn

Row 6(RS): follow pattern to last 18 sts, sl 1 pw, wyib, return sl st, move yarn to front and turn

Row 7(WS): follow pattern and pick up all wrapped stitches, either knitting or purling as needed, place the stitches just worked on holder (18 sts + 38 sts), break yarn and reattach at RS to pick up all wrapped stitches at right shoulder (18 sts).

I should have 18 stitches(left shoulder), 38 stitches (hood) and 18 stitches (right shoulder) left after I complete the short rows...it'll be fun right?