How to Make a Sweater Coat

A sweater coat is a useful piece of clothing for early fall.

Sweater coats are practical wardrobe additions, especially for the transitional fall months, when it's too warm to wear a coat but cool enough that you want a sweater. A sweater coat is essentially a long cardigan. You can adapt most cardigan patterns to make a sweater coat just by knitting the body longer, or you can draft your own sweater coat pattern with a few measurements.

Things You'll Need

• Yarn
• Needles
• Buttons
• Sewing machine

Instructions

Planning the Sweater Coat

1. Knit a swatch in the round with your chosen yarn and needle size, using your chosen stitch pattern. If the swatch looks good to you -- not too loose or too tight -- press it lightly with a steam iron. Measure the size of the circular swatch and divide that number into the number of stitches in the swatch to get your gauge. For example if you knitted a 56-stitch circular swatch, and it is 8 inches in circumference, your gauge is 7 stitches per inch. Note the number of rows per inch also.

2. Try on some long sweaters in your wardrobe to find one that fits perfectly around your hips, neither too baggy nor too tight. You will need some ease around your hips. Button this sweater if it is a cardigan and measure its circumference. Multiply this number in inches by your gauge in inches to get the number of stitches in your key number, K. For example if you are making a sweater that is 44 inches in circumference, and your gauge is 7 stitches per inch, your key number is 308.

3. Make a graph paper drawing of your sweater. You will knit the sweater coat as a straight, unshaped cylinder to the shoulders and insert the sleeves later. Decide how long you want the sweater coat to be from shoulders to hem. Draw a rectangle the width of your sweater and its length. Draw the armhole depth to be about 25 percent of your body circumference, If the body is 44 inches around, the armhole depth is 11 inches. You will decrease the arm stitches gradually to 25 percent of K.

4. Decide how deep and how wide the neck opening will be and draw it on your plan. Calculate how many stitches will equal the width of the neck opening at its top (not including steek stitches). Remember to take into account the width of the button border. Calculate how deep the neck opening will be, and subtract that number (say, 4 inches) from the total length of the sweater to figure out when to start the neck opening decreases.

5. Calculate the length of the sweater coat sleeve. Remember that your coat will have dropped shoulders. Calculate the total length from center back to wrist, then subtract half the width of the sweater coat body to get the arm length. Multiply that number by the rows per inch gauge. This will tell you how many rows you will knit to the cuff (subtract the cuff length itself). You will be decreasing the circumference of the sleeve by half. For example, if K is 308, the top of the sleeve has about 154 stitches, and you will decrease to 77 stitches, 2 stitches per decrease round. So you need about 38 decrease rounds. If your row gauge is 9 rows per inch and the sleeve is 12 inches to the cuff, there are 108 rows. 108 divided by 38 is about 3, so decrease by two stitches on either side of the underarm center every third round.

Knitting the Sweater Coat Body

1. Cast on a number of stitches equal to 90 percent of K, plus a few extra stitches for cutting up the center later. These extra stitches are sometimes called a "steek," or simply "extra stitches." Knit the ribbing for several inches. Increase to K number of stitches, plus the extra stitches, by making a backward loop after every 9 knitted stitches. Begin knitting in the pattern of your choice.

2. Knit to where you decided the armhole would start when you made your drawing on graph paper. At the armhole, cast on three to nine steek stitches, centered on each armhole. If you are knitting a color pattern, knit these stitches in alternate colors to make a speckled or striped pattern. Continue knitting around in pattern until you reach the point at which the neck decreases should begin.

3. Begin decreasing on either side of the front steek. Decrease every third round on each side of the steek until the V is the width you want. When the V is the desired width, continue knitting in pattern until you reach the shoulder. Put the back neck opening stitches on a holder, or bind them off. Bind off the shoulder front and back together. Bind off the armhole steeks at the top of the steek.

Adding the Sleeves and Borders

1. Machine stitch two lines down the center of the armhole steeks. Cut them open with scissors between the two stitched lines. Machine stitch two lines down the center of the neck opening and center body steek. Cut it apart between the two stitched lines.

2. Calculate how many stitches you need for the top of the arm. This will be 50 percent of K. Pick up that many stitches around the armhole edge. Begin knitting the sleeve in your pattern. Decrease by two stitches on either side of the underarm center "seam," or about every third row for an even taper to the cuff. Knit the cuff in ribbing.

3. Beginning at the bottom of the cardigan, knit up 3 stitches for every 4 rows of knitting. Knit up one side of the cardigan, around the neck and down the other side. Mark the two top corners of your sweater with pins and increase on either side of this marked stitch every other row.

4. Knit back and forth (garter stitch), inserting buttonholes when you reach half the width of the border. To make a button hole, make a yarn-over at the buttonhole point. Take the yarn over the right needle from back to front to back, then knit two together. Knit the whole width of the border (1 to 2 inches). Bind off the border.

5. Knit a belt for the sweater coat if desired by casting on 1 to 2 inches worth of stitches and knitting back and forth until the length of the belt is reached. You can make small belt loops in the same manner and sew them onto the coat at waist height. Sew the buttons onto the button band.

Tips & Warnings

• Heavy yarns, such as bulky yarns and alpaca, may cause the sweater to stretch when worn. Use lightweight yarns, or plan ahead for some stretching to occur.

References

• "Sweaters From Camp"; Meg Swanson; 2002