Leaf Yoke Top DONE!

I finished my top today. It took me most of the day to do the hem and i-cord edgings for the neckline and armholes.

The hem was definitely a challenge for me. First, I wanted to make a longer hem. After I figured out where the turning row was in relation to the rest of the hem, I knit 10 rows instead of the 4 rows instructed in the pattern after the hem joining row. I then knit 3 rows even, then purled the following row, then knit 4 rounds, then knit 10 rows after repeating the decrease round. Specific needle and decrease changes are in the Knit.1 Spring/Summer 2009. I don't write anything specific to the pattern because of copyright issues.

The second problem I had with the hem was joining it. After several attempts of just following the correct purl line on the wrong side without a guide (the instructions assume that you can just follow the correct line by using waste yarn for the first few stitches - yeah right...), I used a #2 circular needle to first pick up the stitches on the wrong side and then used both it and the #4 needle on the original stitches to knit the stitches together and bind off the hem. Huh?

Okay, this is what I did:

I am assuming that you are at the point where you have turned the hem at the turning row (purl row).

1) Take a smaller size circular needle. In my case, I used a size 2, 24 inch circular needle. Take your needles, find the hem line on the wrong side (which you should have denoted with waste yarn or a removable stitch marker) and pick up the purl ridges of that row. Sorry I didn't think to take a picture of this when I was doing it. To tell you the truth, I just wanted to get it done!

2) Fold the hem at the purl row so the edge stitches meet the purl row that you just picked up. Match the needle points, with the needle holding the edge stitches (needle #1) in front of the needles holding the purl ridges (needle #2).

3) Take the right needle and put it in needle #1 as if to knit, then continue through into needle #2. Knit these two stitches together.

4) Repeat with the next set of stitches. Pass the first stitch over the second to bind off.

Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the hem is done. It will take you a few hours. Try your best to finish this steps in one sitting. If this is impossible (as it was for me!) I feel for you...Just be careful to not let the stitch on the right needle fall off. Since they are on circular needles, I just pulled all of the needles as far as I could into the stitches (to hold them), and that did the trick.