By Jenny Hart
- The armhole of a sleeveless vest has a tendency to gape at the bust line. Knitting a small triangle shaping, a gusset, under the arm gives a beautifully neat armhole that lies flat.
Pick up the stitches for the armhole:
– using a needle two sizes smaller than the body of the garment.
– using a circular needle. This makes it easier to pick up stitches without stretching the fabric and you can check that you like the look of the spacing of stitches along the thin, flexible section of the needle.
– pick up in the middle of a stitch. If you pick up between the stitches you will create a hole. - Fold the garment so that the armhole is in half. Put in a marker. Fold each half in half again and put in two more markers. This will enable you to check the stitches are evenly distributed around the armhole.
- Make a gusset following the instructions below using an odd number of stitches.
Under Arm Gusset for a Vest
- Pick up 3 out of 4 stitches around an armhole
- Count 6 stitches either side of the central underarm stitch.
- Place a marker at the beginning and end of these underarm stitches. There will be a total of 13 stitches in this section. Vary the number of stitches depending on the weight of the yarn you are using. Use less stitches for a bulky yarn and more stitches for a fine yarn.
- Decrease 1 stitch every second row, either end of the underarm section until there are no stitches left between the markers.
Under Arm Gusset for a Sweater
- Start the gusset shaping at the central underarm stitch.
- On the first row of the gusset, increase 1 stitch (M1) either side of the central stitch. (M1 – pick up the loop between the two needles, knit into the back of the new loop).
- Work across all stitches on the next row.
- On the next round, work up to the 3 gusset stitches. M1, work across the gusset stitches, M1.
- Continue working these two rows until the gusset is the desired width. This will be approximately 21 stitches for double knitting weight yarn.
- Work one knit row without additional stitches.
- Place the gusset stitches on a stitch holder.
- Complete the front and back of the garment and join the shoulder seams.
- Use double pointed needles, right side facing, pick up the gusset stitches and knit.
- Pick up and knit the stitches for the sleeve from the front and the back of the garment.
- Knit the sleeve down decreasing on either side of the gusset.
- Round 1: Sl 1, K1, psso, K to the last gusset stitch, K2 tog.
- Work the next round without decreasing.
- Continue decreasing every second row of the gusset until only the central gusset stitch remains.