Kelley knit the Latte Baby Coat by Lisa Chemery for her little granddaughter Claire, and in the process she used a couple of great techniques that all sweater knitters should have in their toolboxes.

The first is attaching backing buttons, which are those inexpensive, clear buttons. If you attach them on the back of your button band, directly behind your buttons, they stabilize the buttons and make the garment look really professional. 

Backing buttons.

Here's a demo of how Kelley placed the backing buttons:

Keep watching for a great technique to use when you knit sweaters in one piece—the Faux Seam. The great Elizabeth Zimmerman introduced this method for adding a bit of structure to the sides of a one-piece sweater.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Faux Seam

Left: Faux seam from the right side. Right: Faux seam from the wrong side.

This technique is worked on the right side, while piece is still on the needles.

Set-Up. Take the stitch where the side seam would be off the needle, and ravel it all the way down to the cast-on stitch. (It's helpful to have a locking stitch marker on hand to clip onto that last stitch.)

Step 1. Insert a crochet hook into that cast-on stitch, and pull through two strands from above. You will now have two stitches on your hook.

Step 2. Pull the next strand through both loops.

Continue, repeating steps 1 and 2, alternating two strands and one strand, until you reach the top. Put the live stitch back on the needle.

Repeat for the other side seam.

You can work a faux seam on either a top-down or bottom-up sweater, but if you're knitting from the top down, you'll need to leave the side-seam stitch on a stitch holder until you're finished with the body and then ravel it and work the faux seam.

These two techniques can make a huge difference in your finished sweater. We hope you'll try them!

Cheers,