What makes our patterns special?

Knitting patterns abound, but what defines us? Right from the start, our designer Sjöfn struggled with the classic, formulaic style of many patterns, which can quickly become confusing, especially for beginners. With her own instructions, she doesn't want to lecture from above, but, in her words, much rather be the best friend who sits next to you on the couch and explains everything to you in normal language so that you can understand the patterns without much previous knowledge and can rework.

The guide, which is aimed specifically at beginners, is "All Beginnings are Easy!", which consists of a children's sweater and a hat. With the help of these instructions we want to show you some typical elements of our patterns. The instructions, which are free by the way, can be found here .

What's even more special here are the first three pages with detailed information on knitting gauge, cast-on and bind-off and all other techniques you will use on your way from the neck cuff down to the last row. In this form, this information only exists in this one pattern.

Each pattern has a title page first. There you will find all relevant information about yarn, accessories, needle size etc. at a glance.

Here we recommend the yarn that we know works well in this pattern. Of course you don't have to use any of these recommendations, you can also use other yarns with comparable properties, but here are our suggestions. The amount of yarn depends on the yarns we recommend. The needle size is of course individually dependent on your own stitch sample.

Here are the measurements in detail for each size. The scheme is always the same for sweaters: the chest measurement is the widest part of the torso, below the sleeves. We measure the width of the knitted piece and double this number for the circumference.

The length from the base of the sleeves to the lower cuff indicates the length of the torso from the forearm. Since many of our jumpers are knitted top down, you can easily adjust the length to your liking by knitting this part a little longer or shorter.

Sleeve circumference is measured at the widest part of sleeve before dec is made.

Like the torso length, the sleeve length is also measured from the base of the sleeves on the forearm. And here, too, you can of course vary if necessary.

Here is some general information about the abbreviations used, the measurements and how to use the stitch marker.

The most important thing at the end: Here you can see after which gauge the jumper should be knitted. It is absolutely necessary that your stitch gauge matches the one mentioned here. If in doubt, knit a small test piece until you have found the right needles. Sjöfn knits tight and uses 4.0 here. As a translator I would rather use 3.0 as I knit very loosely and the general recommendation for the yarn is in the middle at 3.5.

After the first page, the neckband starts straight away:

As you can see, we try to make these instructions as clear and beginner-friendly as possible (here even more so than with other patterns), and give tips that experienced knitters may not need anymore, but often make the first hurdle a little easier for beginners.

We are happy to show special techniques in a small box. Here the technique is explained in detail (and with a video), but in the continuous text of the instructions it is only described with M1R, M1L. Anyone who has already knitted some of our patterns will know the instructions by now and can simply ignore this box, but the text flow in the instructions will not be disturbed. For beginners, the box shows the possibly unfamiliar new technique in a particularly visible and clear way.

The same goes for the sleeves too:

Here you will find all the necessary information for the correct beginning of the sleeve. This is enough for experienced knitters, but if you have never knitted a raglan sweater from the top down, you might run into problems here. That's why there is also a box here that describes this step in detail and with pictures - which you can simply read over as a professional:

With this information you should be able to rework our patterns without much experience. Our second major concern, in addition to the understandable language, is also personal support: If you find problems in our patterns and can no longer get any further, regardless of whether it is uncertainty about a series or a problem with the entire concept, you can always contact us Contact us and we will do our best to answer any questions you may have. At the moment the German version of Stroff Knitting is of course only a one-woman company, but I, Leonie, am happy to be there for you! Just send us an email to info@stroff-knitting.de or contact us on Facebook or Instagram .

Until then, happy knitting!