Joining for the body.

[jackandahat]

This is going to be one of those questions where I try, badly, to explain the problem. It's like knitting charades!

I'm knitting a top-down raglan pullover. I've made little ones before, but this is my first me-sized.

When I get to join the arms... well. Imagine that when you knit up to the arm hole you have side A (the stuff on the right needle, "before" the arm hole) and side B (the stuff on the left, "after"). Even if I just knit straight across, I end up with a gaping gap between the bit I've knitted and where I would knit the stitches for the arm. And that's even without casting on more stitches, which makes the gap even clearer. (Not the gap caused by the cast-on stitches, I know you pick them up - I mean just... a random gap.)

And I know it says to pick up some stitches but the "gap" is pretty unpickupable, part of it is where the increased stitches were and if I try to pick up I get one loop pulled away from the rest and it looks ugly.

Does this make sense to anyone? Is it something I've done wrong? Help?

*Throws self on your mercy* I've made teddy bear sweaters and met this problem before, but I solved it by just sewing it up. But that's not as neat as it could be, and there must be a better way, so.

ETA: ( Picture under cut )

any french knitters?

[catechism]

Bonjour! A few of my friends have started having kids, and while I was poking around on Ravelry for baby patterns I liked, I discovered that the vast majority of them are made by Phildar. My French is vaguely okay, so I went ahead and ordered one of their pattern books.

...at which point I discovered that my vaguely okay French is not really good enough for knitting. It's not enough to just be able to translate the words; a lot of the way things are phrased seems different to me, and so I'm having a lot of trouble. I managed to make a blanket and a hat (sort of), but now I would like to make a jacket thing, which is far more complicated. I've spent a few days with the pattern and a French knitting dictionary, but there are still a few places I'm lost. Is there anyone who would be willing to help me out?