shoulder relocation surgery

My mom knit this poncho for Bren last Christmas, but the shoulders were too wide, so I was asked to fix it. Since it’s knit top down, I certainly didn’t want to take it apart all the way up to the shoulders and then have to re-knit the whole thing, so I pondered a while. Finally came up with a plan.


Threaded lifeline yarn above and below the row where I was planning to cut, then snipped a thread of the in-between row and un-knit that row. This was more time-consuming than I expected because the wool had somewhat felted together since originally being knit. So then I had an upper piece and a lower piece. Set lower piece aside.


Took apart the upper piece to the place where the shoulders should be, tearing out about 8" of knitting. Inserted needle at that row and began knitting down, shaping the shoulders in a narrower position and continuing down, increasing every other row until the numbers of stitches on the lowermost row of the top portion matched the number of stitches on the lifelined row of the bottom portion. (My mom actually re-knit most of these rows because the chunky needles and weight of the project made my hands hurt.)

Grafted the top portion to the bottom portion. Repositioned dichroic bead “buttons” and gave Bren back her poncho with relocated shoulders!