picking up stitches

[outdoordrea]

Hello again, I'm wondering if there is some sort of formula for picking up stitches; meaning, if I have more stitches than picked-up stitches that are called for, how do I decide which ones to pick up and which ones to skip?

At the moment, I'm trying to fix the stockinette curl of the arm band on a vest I made last winter. I followed the pattern, but the armholes still rolled under. I frogged both the finished armholes and added an I-cord bind off to one arm but it still wants to curl under. I'm going to try the k1p1 ribbing on the other arm to see if that helps.

The garment is knitted from Wool-Ease, which is mostly acrylic with about 30% wool. I blocked the garment originally, but after being worn, it reverts back to curling. Grr.

[MerigoldinWA]

On some things 1,2,3, skip works well, but even that is no hard and fast rule. I recently used that formula to pick up stitches to knit on a sleeve and then decided I had too many and went back and ended up picking up every other stitch, and for my purpose that worked very well. You may have to experiment a little and even do it more than once to get what works right. The good news is that taking it out and starting over doesn't cause any big problems. :-) Good luck.

Oh, I missed some of what you said. If you have a recommended number to pick up and want to pick up that number you can divide your number by 4 (or whatever you like) and your armhole into four (or whatever number you chose) even quadrants and pick up one fourth in each section. It doesn't matter too much exactly which stitches you choose. Pick up with the outside facing you and keep in mind that what you see is what you get. If it is looking good, and as evenly spaced as you can make it with reasonable care, it is working. You can take out any that look ill placed and do them over. That said, sometimes the numbers given for picking up don't seem to be the perfect number in all circumstances and you may find you need to adjust that number.

[suzeeq]

Usually pick up 3, skip one, or pick up 2, skip one works. It depends on your gauge.

[outdoordrea]

The original pattern called for picking up 88 stitches out of 100, but I found that picking up 4 and skipping one (equaling 80 picked-up sts for each armhole) worked better. I did one side with 88 sts and the other with 80 sts. It's a good thing that this is my vest, otherwise I would be frogging yet again .