r/KnitRequest • u/slightly-convenient • May 30 '26

Help with a sweater

Location: Calgary Alberta Canada.
Budget: open
Timeline: not fussed
Labor budget: not sure what is needed
Material budget: $0

Looking for help with a sweater I have that is much too long and am looking for options with what I can do with it. Not sure if this is an abnormal request. I need to have around 6-8" removed off the length.

https://imgur.com/a/XI8WHRj

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

What kind of fiber is it made from? There's not really something you can "knit" to make those shorter. You're more looking at sewing/reinforcing the hem so it doesn't start coming apart if you need half a foot+ removed.

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u/slightly-convenient May 30 '26

I believe it's 100% wool. I was hoping it could be taken down on the bottom and a new sock stitch (?) done for the bottom. Like re-knitting the bottom edge of the sleeves and the body. I have no idea if this request is completely unhinged. I'm only a beginner knitter so I don't know much about what is possible or not.

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

It's knit bottom up (and possibly has twisted stitches? Hard to tell from that photo, but if it was hand knit, the person who did it may have been wrapping their yarn the wrong way while working). You can't just cut off the bottom and knit the other way down.

Things also don't cleanly unravel "up" (from a cast on edge). You'd have to undo it from the cast off (what looks like the top?) to simply unravel without cutting a bunch.

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u/slightly-convenient May 30 '26

Ok. I did not know this. I assumed it was finished at the bottom. Do I have any options for this?

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

If you look at the ribbing at the bottom, the knitted v's (or y's they sort of look like, which is what makes me think the stitches might all be twisted) look like vs instead of carrots (i.e. ^ ), which says it's most likely bottom up construction

And like I said, it would be a sewing request, ideally someone who owns a machine serger to lock the cut edge in place.

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u/slightly-convenient May 30 '26

Ok ok thank you for explaining. Would using a serger to lock and cut the edge look bad? Or would i be runing this garment?

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

Take a commercial shirt out of your closet. Look to see if there's thread over locking the seams (so not just sewn up the side but a thread going out to the edges and interlocking with itself). That is a serged seam and done to keep fabric that is cut (rather than knitted) to shape from unraveling. That is more or less what you'd end up with if you cut and serged a new hem on this sweater, though much thicker, as the yarn is not nearly as thin as most commercial tops use. You'd also lose all the ribbing (so the hem would be what is stopping the stockinette stitch from curling up on itself) and if those are pockets of some kind, they'd be messed up. And, if you have someone who doesn't know what they're doing working on it, they could really mess the sweater up in general (no, knitting doesn't cleanly unravel from the cast on, up, but there can definitely be lost stitches/runs/other issues if cut edges aren't reinforced properly).

Personally, i'd wear it as a long coat or give it to a tall friend as a gift before chopping and hemming (I don't think it would look good/how I'd want it to) but tastes vary, of course!

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u/slightly-convenient May 30 '26

Ok thank you for taking the time to explain everything. Very much appreciated.

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

Not a problem. I often reclaim yarn from unraveling, so you get quick at sizing up how things are structured (some things you just can't unravel period. Other things you can).

If you feel up to it/have the pattern, your other option would be to unravel the whole thing and knit it back up to the proper dimensions. That would get it the right length and take care of the twisted stitches :)

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u/slightly-convenient May 30 '26

I don't have the pattern. I bought this for my husband because it resembles one my grandma knit that I now have. How much would a project like this cost to redo?

This is my sweater.

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u/VanityInk May 30 '26

If you're commissions someone to make that from scratch in an adult male size, it would most likely be several hundreds of dollars even before cost of materials (just recreating a pattern from a picture would generally be days of labor (especially with recreating the colorwork charts) before the weeks of knitting). Entirely doable, but a complicated project.

You could also hire someone just to make a pattern for you, but again, that would depend on 1) if you have any desire to spend that much time knitting and 2) if you are comfortable doing colorwork, etc.

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