Happy Sunday, dear friends! Today I decided to show you my little trick that I use to avoid holes in the underarm when picking up stitches for the raglan sleeve. When I knit my first raglan, I religiously followed the pattern instructions, which said to pick up cast on stitches in the underarm and at the end to sew small holes. I did sew the holes, but every once in awhile the sewed in holes become holes again. I struggled a lot with them and thought there had to be a way to avoid these holes altogether and not bother closing them up after you are done knitting. After experimenting I came up with the solution that I now use every single time when knitting the raglan. It never failed me once! I hope you will find it helpful as well and will get rid of these pesky underarm holes once and for all.
At first let’s see what happens when you pick up stitches the “traditional” way. Usually when you divide the body and sleeves, you are instructed to cast on x number of stitches between the front and the back. For example, the instructions would look something like this:
Body and Sleeves Separating: Work front xxx sts to marker, remove marker, place xxx sleeve sts on waste yarn, cast on 6 sts, work back xxx sts to marker, remove marker, place xxx sleeve sts on waste yarn, cast on 6 sts, work front xxx sts.
When you are done with the body, you usually get back to the sleeves. This is how it looks like, more or less. You can see the little “knobs” on each of 6 cast on stitch.
This what usually happens next, if you follow the instructions.
If you need to see a bigger photo, open it in the new tab.
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- The arrow shows the first cast on st, from where you are supposed to pick up your first underarm st.
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- You picked up all 6 cast on sts.
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- You come to the other side and continue working in the round as established.
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- Let’s see what happens after you’ve knit a couple of rows. A big hole was created underarm on both sides of the cast on sts.
Now let’s see how we can avoid it altogether. I am going to use the yarn in the contrasting color for demonstration purposes.
If you need to see a bigger photo, open it in the new tab.
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- The arrow shows 6 cast on sts
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- For your convenience, place marker on each of the side live sleeve sts.
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- Do you see how big the distance is between first cast on st and the first live st on the working needle? If we pick up st immediately from cast on sts, it will create the hole. To avoid that, we will pick up extra sts between live and cast on st. The number of extra sts can vary – you determine yourself how many extra sts you need to close all the gaps.
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- In this example, 4 extra sts will be enough.
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- Now pick up 6 cast on sts as usual.
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- Here what you will have on your needles: 4 extra sts + 6 picked up cast on sts.
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- You come to the other side and again see this gap. Fill it in by picking up extra sts. Note: usually the number of extra sts needed to close the gap will be the same as in the first gap, but sometimes you will need more or less depending on your fabric. It doesn’t matter if the number of extra sts on two sides will be different.
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- You’ve picked up extra sts. You have 14 sts in total picked up. It’s 8 sts more than you need for your sleeve st count. But don’t worry – we’ll take care of it soon!
We can’t just continue working in the round as usual, because we have 8 extra sts on the needles and it will drastically change the size of the sleeve. So, we need one more step before we can continue our sleeve as usual.
After you picked up all the stitches needed, continue knitting the first round:
In order to come back to the instructed 6 underarm stitches, we need to decrease all the extra sts on the next round.
If you need to see a bigger photo, open it in the new tab.
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- After you’ve finished knitting the live sts, you will come to the last live st (the one with the marker). Knit this stitch and the first one of the picked up gap sts together.
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- Remember, that we need 6 cast on sts in the sleeve’s underarm. Let’s count how many sts we need to decrease. The last picked up st will be knit together with the marked live st. This will leave us with 12 center sts. We need 6 sts, which means that we will have to k2tog 6 times.
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- After 6 times of k2tog, you come to the last picked up st and the marked st. Knit them together as well.
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- Let’s see what we’ve got: Marked sts on each side of the central picked up underarm sts. As you can see we have exactly 6 sts between the marked sts – precisely what we need for the correct sleeve st count.
Now let’s knit a couple of rounds and take a look at the underarm:
Ta-daaam! No holes! And the number of sts is exactly the same as indicated in the pattern instructions! You can use this little trick with any raglan sleeve instructions. Important to remember: there is no certain rule how many extra sts need to be picked up. The number of picked up extra sts can vary – sometimes you need 4, sometimes 5, sometimes just 2 is enough. You will have to watch your fabric and see if all the holes/gaps are closed. And always decrease all the extra sts to come to the number of sleeve sts indicated in the pattern.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments!
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I pick up extra stitches as well to avoid holes. Sometimes I even knit all the picked up stitches through the backloop in the first row, that seems to get them another tiny bit tighter. I do the same on socks when I pick up stitches for the gusset.
Thank you so much for mentioning backloop, Corinne! Yes, it is a great way to create sturdy underarms!
Great tip – I usually add a couple of extra stitches but never thought it would work to pick up this many – no fear from now on!
I am glad you found it helpful, Terri! The main rule – there are no rules 🙂 The main criteria is your fabric – if you like it, then you are doing everything right.
Another one of your fabulous tutorials. Girl, you should get a medal for these!
Thank you, Andrea! Do you think there should be knitting Olympics? 🙂
Very neat, and so well thought out! I tend to just weave in the ends by the underarm and sew up the small hole as I go. But this is definitely a more seamless version!
Thank you, Julie! Somehow sewing always failed me – after awhile the holes appeared all over again. I am glad you find it helpful!
Excellent tutorial for a new knitter. Thank you.
stitches for the raglan sleeve , really cool idea, you did great job dear 🙂
Thank you so much!
Lovely simple trick, thank you for posting. I’d never thought to pick up so many extra stitches but it definitely does the job!
Thank you for the feedback! I hope you will use it in many of your future projects!
You are a knitting genius!
I’m knitting a raglan sweater right now but I had started the first sleeve. I haven’t done many rows but the holes are enormous, so I’ll go back and try your way.
Thanks for another great tutorial dear 😀
Oh, I doubt about the genius part 🙂 Haha. Thank you, my friend, I am glad you find it useful.
I concur with the other posters, you offer great tutorials, Alina. So clearly stated – even I understood this and I’m just a fledgling knitter. 🙂
Thank you, my dear friend! I am sure you will be confident with your needles in no time!
your tutorial was extremely well written and very clear! I took a class on finishing many years ago, and the instructor pretty much said to ignore the instructions when it came to a certain number of stitches that ‘need’ to be picked up….you must pick up the number that YOU need to accommodate your gauge (row gauge in the case of raglan sleeves…) which may or may not be what the author got! The same goes for those pesky underarm stitches (or my personal nemesis—button bands!!!!); I must admit, I’ve never picked up quite the number that you do, although I always pick up more than what the pattern states, then, dec like you do. I think I just may add a couple more pick-up stitches next time I’m doing a sleeve….yours looks so very very tidy and secure. Thanks again for the tip…..and the beautifully illustrated instructions.
Thank you, Steph! Oh, I love it – “to ignore the instructions when it came to a certain number of stitches that ‘need’ to be picked up”. I so agree!! It’s just impossible to predict 100% the fabric that the knitter will get, these numbers are more like guidelines, rather than strict instructions. I think it is also important to include in the pattern the instructions for picked up stitches such as “make sure that the number of picked up sts is divisible by x”, I think it is much more useful this way.
I wish I had the time to knit, at least the time to learn how to knit well;)
Knitting is so worth all the time!! I hope you will be able to squeeze it in in your day!!
I need to read this again when I make my next sweater. I have this problem ALL the time and it drives me crazy. Thank you for posting!
I am glad you find it helpful, Sarah!
HA! Why have I never thought of doing this? I am actually starting a sleeve tonight, will totally be using this technique! Thank you.
Thank YOU, Monica, for all your sweet comments!!! So happy to see you here!
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Thanks for this. I am making my first raglan and have huge gaps under the arm. Which leads me to ask, why cast on those stitches to begin with. There’s a big gap anyway, why not pick up x stitches when you get to the sleeve?
This is an outstanding tutorial! Big, big thanks!
Your photos and detailed explanation are very thorough and easy to follow. My underarms have no holes and I’m delighted.
This post was exactly what I needed. I was just starting the sleeves on my first sweater and was looking for help, since I’ve had hole issues when picking up stitches on other projects. Thanks for such a well expressed way to deal with what seems to be a common problem.
I’ve been knitting for years, and I can’t believe I didn’t think of this! Thank you so much for making this lovely tutorial; I’ll definitely use it on my next top down sweater!
Thank you for sharing this solution with underarms holes! I want to practice it in my next sleeve’s knitwear project 🙂
I happened upon your website by happy chance, attracted by the promise of tidy knitted edges. Dipping further I found the cure for underarm holes. Well, don’t laugh, my area of expertise is doll clothes. I love to knit doll cardigans, but the underarm holes drove me nuts. Guess what, I only have to add ONE stitch on either side of the cast on stitches to eliminate holes. So easy! Thank you!
Thank you , your tutorial saved my love for knitting sweaters for my Granddaughter and now feel more confident to knit garments for myself and family!
patknits3 on Ravelry
What do you do to secure the “tail” of the first picked up stitch?
Most clear instructions for this problem. Thank you very much!
Photos were super helpful and easy to follow. I had been picking up stitches, but never this many and it seems so obvious. Plus who likes sewing in ends and all those holes. 🙂 Thanks!
thank you so much…wish there was an easy way to print (i’m greedy)….also, any modifications for sweater in garter stitch? thank you!