Marsa Alam – Simultanous set-in-sleeve construction

Finished this weekend my second Marsa Alam by Isabell Kraemer. I’m addicted with everything stripy and this little cardigan is perfect. Love everything about. It’s knit from the top down, more on the fitted side, narrow stripes, rounded neck and especially the technique for the set-in sleeves is my favourite one so far. I used both times the same yarn-combination but in differerent colourways:

Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball® Stärke 6  in  Wurzelsepp and Buntmetall combined with Monika Design Super Yak  in 10155 (Hellbraun) and 10159 (Grau). The Zauberball is a perfect match for this cardigan, it stripes soooo beautiful and the Yak, though it’s finer than the Zauberball, blooms after washing and it’s a pleasure to wear.

The second Marsa Alam in Buntmetall  and 10159 (Grau).

Below a close up look from the simultaneous set-in-sleeve construction, my preferred way to knit sleeves. Personally I think set-in-sleeves have the best, natural fit of all sleeves styles. I like raglan constructions too, but they’re not always flattering and have sometimes the tendency to fall apart.

The problem with set-in-sleeves is that they’re often not the easiest to knit.  There are four ways to do them I discovered so far:

1. Sewn Method: You knit the sleeves separately and you sew them in later. Good fit but the seam isn’t  always very neat and beautiful
2. Contiguous Method: The Contiguous method is a way of knitting the shoulder seams and sleeve caps of a garment from the top down, developed by Susie Myers, that creates a visible seam on the shoulders. Fit is good, the method isn’t difficult, but I don’t like the seam that looks always a bit holey.
3. Picking up method: After finishing the garment you pick up stitches around the armhole and knit the sleeves from the top down shaping the sleeves capes with short rows. I must admit I don’t like this method…. because I haven’t managed until now to do it neatly… the picked up stitches and the short rows never looked beautiful for me but always a bit wonky.
4. Simultaneous set-in-sleeve method: from Barbara Walker for top-down garments. You knit the sleeve cap at the same time as the upper part of the garment. You have to pick up some stitches at the top of the sleeve too, but it’s much easier and neater and afterwards you work with simple increases to form the sleeve cap. For me it’s the neatest way to do set-in-sleeves and the fit is perfect:

My first Marsa Alam, finished 2013 in Wurzelsepp combined with 10155 (Hellbraun).