tutorial Archives - Page 4 of 21

tutorial – working a picot bind-off

There are quite a few different ways to work a picot bind-off. That’s not even counting the variations coming from different distances between picots, and the sizing of the picots. In this tutorial, I’ll show you a variation of the picot bind-off that consists of binding of stitches the traditional way, combined with strategically cast-on stitches. Also, it can, of course, be used to bind-off a project. But the picot bind-off can also be worked on picked-up stitches or on the stitches from a provisional cast-on. The sky is the limit!

Materials used

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color 133 Marine Blue.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the picot bind-off step by step

Take your project when you’re ready to start your bind-off. You can start as soon as the last row of your work has been knit, and after your work has been turned when working flat back and forth.
In this example, I’m using a swatch from a previous tutorial.
To start, knit 2 stitches.
Insert the left-hand needle into the stitch first worked…
… and lift it over the second stitch.
You have now bound-off 1 stitch.
Knit 1 stitch and repeat steps 3 and 4 to bind-off another stitch.
Next, cast-on 2 stitches using the knitted-on cast-on.
To do so, insert your needle into the stitch, wrap the yarn around it and pull it through the stitch. Then, instead of slipping the original stitch off the needle as you’d do when working a knit stitch, slip the new loop onto the left-hand needle to create a new stitch. Repeat once to get 2 new stitches.
To finish the first picot, work step 5 a total of 4 times.
Continue working steps 6 and 7 until your work has been completely bound-off.

When viewed from the back, it looks like this:

The result of the picot bind-off, viewed from the back

Thanks to my Patreon supporters for bringing you this freebie! Creating quality patterns and tutorials is a lot of work and resource-intensive. However, I find it important to give you free content like this tutorial. Thanks to the generous support of my Patreon supporters, I can make it happen. Thank you, patrons! Click here to join, or click here to read more about La Visch Designs on Patreon.

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tutorial – in between tinking and frogging

In between tinking and frogging - a tutorial by La Visch Designs

In a shawl project, I encountered a hiccup that I had to fix. When finishing the diamond patterning after a full repeat, and then working a garter stitch ridge to mirror the beginning of this section, this is what I noticed:

Do you see those plain rows of stockinette just above the needle and garter stitch ridge on the right? This did not mirror the start of the section at all… So, I undid some rows to start the garter stitch ridge earlier. With a rather “sticky” yarn, I would just remove the knitting needle, rip it out and place the stitches back on the needle at the right point. However, the yarn used in this project contains 50% tencel, making it rather slippery. I certainly didn’t want to drop any stitches in this patterning. But tinking (knitting spelled and done backwards) back 3 rows wasn’t a good option as well, with over 350 sts on the needle.

The solution: a technique that is something in between tinking and frogging! Below, I’ll show you how I went about it step by step.

Materials

Yarn: Hearthside Fibers Crystal in the colors “Vermont”, and “Lake”.

Needles: A pair of Addi circular needles in the size 4 mm (US 6)

In between tinking and frogging step by step

I positioned my project in such a way, that I had a good view of the row I wanted to put back on the needle from the right side of the fabric.
In this case, that meant holding the work as shown.
Do you see the little “V” just above the knitting needle, positioned in between the loops on that needle? Insert the needle into the left leg of the first “V”
You could, of course, insert the needle under the other leg, but that would mean that the loops are placed on the needle with a twisted orientation. Not a big issue, but it would mean working a first row of the project through the back loops to get them oriented correctly again.
I do hope I haven’t mixed up my stitch legs here, though…
Repeat step 2 until you have a decent number of stitches on your needle.
When working with circulars, that’s about 15 to 20 stitches for me.
Next, slide the knitting needle that holds all non-tinked back stitches out of the stitches below which you’ve just picked up stitches with the other needle.
Now gently pull out the working yarn out of these stitches.
Make sure to watch out for any missed stitches, now it’s easy to fix it without any runners in your fabric. This will be less so when you’ve already moved on to a new section of stitches.
And there you have it: a whole set of stitches safely on the needle, without either tinking or frogging.

This way really is between tinking and frogging; a lovely compromise! And my project? I got the offending rows out and did the garter stitch ridge earlier. This is how I intended it to look!

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tutorial – knitwear examined: a Missoni tee

A closeup of the top of a mannequin, it's wearing a Missoni tee in yellows.

When talking about knitwear, at a certain point Missoni is bound to be named. Missoni is an Italian brand and fashion house, famous for its colorful zigzag patterns and vibrant floral prints. Due to this, many of their pieces have a very exuberant seventies aesthetic. According to Wikipedia, the company was founded in 1953, when Ottavio and Rosita Missoni set up a small knitwear workshop in Gallarate, Italy. They presented their first collection under the Missoni label in Milan in 1958. According to this website, Missoni revolutionized knitwear by introducing slinky sweaters and crochet tracksuits. Originally using lines, the Missoni family discovered a way to make the emblematic chevron pattern by using Raschel knitting machines. The new technique allowed the fashion house to use knits to create any shape of garment, allowing them to cut and sew material without loosening the threads.

As luck would have it, I have a Missoni knitwear tee. It’s a vintage one that my mother used to have, and at a certain point gifted to me. I have been wearing it a lot the last couple of years. So let’s take a look at it!

In the below pictures, I have put the tee on my mannequin. It has a simple round neck as well as the famous chevron pattern in multiple colors of yellow, green and lilac. A design aspect that jumps out to me, is that the fabric of the sleeves is positioned in such a way that the larger chevron is centered on the top of both sleeves.

A closer look

This tee is an Italian size 48, this is similar to an EU 40-42 and US 12.

The neckband looks like a folded hem, covering the edge where the fabric appears to be cut. On the inside of the garment, the fabric of the side seams is serged. So, it’s reasonable to assume that underneath the folded hem, there is also a serged edge to prevent the fabric from unraveling.

Again, the patterning is centered relative to the neck opening and body of the tee.

The yarn used in this garment is very thin. As a hand knitter, I would classify this as lace weight. That said, commercial knitwear is often in much thinner yarn than hand knit ones. The yarn composition consists of 65% linen, 20% rayon, and 15% nylon.

The color runs in the yarn are of medium length, and change abruptly from one color to the next.

The sleeves are set-in, again with serged edges on the inside. In this picture, you can see very well how the centering of the pattern on the top of the sleeve results in a larger “point”.

And last, but not least: the patterning itself. I have not charted it out, but the repeat seems to consist of something like:

K7, CDD, k7, yo, k1, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, skp, yo, k1, skp, yo, k1, yo.

The WS rows are alternating in knit and purl. So, I think we’re looking at a 4-row repeat.

If you test this out, I’m looking forward to hearing whether the above indeed matches the patterning in my tee.

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tutorial – working the improved SSK decrease

Previously, I told you about the SSK decrease. SSK stands for “slip slip knit”, but working the decrease entails a bit more than that, visit the tutorial to learn more about it! However, because you slip 2 stitches with a traditional SSK, you also risk stretching the stitches out a bit. So, smart folks thought of a different way that involves less slipping and therefor less risk of stretched out stitches, and thus a smoother left-leaning decrease.

Below, I’ll show you how to work the improved SSK decrease step by step.

Materials

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine Blue.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the SSK decrease step by step

Work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the decrease.
In this case, I’m using the same swatch as I did for the regular SSK. This time, I’m working the decrease 4 stitches in from the left side of the swatch. Including the edge stitches in garter stitch.
Insert the needle into the first stitch on the left-hand needle as if to knit…
… and slip the stitch to the right-hand needle.
With this action, you twist the stitch mount of the stitch. Do you see how it sits differently on the needle when compared with the other stitches?
Next, slip the stitch back to the left-hand needle, to do so I insert the left-hand needle into the front loop of the slipped stitch…
…. and put it back on the left-hand needle.
Now we want to work a k2tog tbl. To do so, insert the right-hand needle through the back loops of the first 2 stitches on the left-hand needle…
… wrap the yarn around the needle….
… Pull the yarn through…
… and slip the stitch of the needle to finish the decrease.
This is how it then looks:

The below picture shows how it looks after 2 more decrease rows have been worked. You can compare the improved SSK decreases with the regular ones on the bottom half of the swatch. To be honest, I don’t see a lot of difference, but I’m sure it’s just my knitting that’s to blame. Try it yourself, your results may very well be better than mine!

The result of several improved SSK decreases

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tutorial – working the SSK decrease

When we’re talking about a single, left-leaning decrease, I usually prefer working the SKP decrease. This abbreviation stands for “slip 1, knit 1, pass slipped stitch over”. However, many people prefer the SSK decrease instead. SSK stands for “slip slip knit”, but working the decrease entails a bit more than that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a hard decrease to work, but you do have to know how to slip the stitches.

Below, I’ll show you how to work this decrease step by step.

Materials

Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Marine Blue.

Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.

Working the SSK decrease step by step

Work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the decrease
In this case, I want to work the decrease 7 stitches in from the left side of the swatch. That is including the edge stitches in garter stitch.
Insert the needle into the first stitch on the left-hand needle as if to knit…
… and slip the stitch to the right-hand needle.
With this action, you twist the stitch mount of the stitch. Do you see how it sits differently on the needle when compared with the other stitches?
Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the next stitch on the left-hand needle.
Now, we have to put those 2 stitches back onto the left-hand needle. To do so, insert the left-hand needle into the front loops of the 2 stitches on the right-hand needle.
With the action of the last step, we have already positioned these 2 stitches for the next step: Knitting them together through the back loop (k2tog tbl). This means we now only have to wrap the yarn around the needle….
… Pull the yarn through…
… and slip the stitch of the needle to finish the decrease.
This is how it then looks:

The below picture shows how it looks after 2 more decrease rows have been worked.

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tutorial – replacing the toe of a hand-knit sock

Replacing the worn-down toe of a hand-knit sock

My youngest is a big fan of wearing hand knit socks. To make sure he gets enough wear out of a pair before growing out of them, I make him tube socks. The pattern I use is usually the No-Heel Spiral Socks by La Maison Rililie. Anyway, he wears these socks a lot, and that means they also get a lot of wear. With the sock pictured, a hole developed in the lilac toe section. On further inspection, it became clear that the whole lilac toe was thin all over, but that the rest of the sock was still good for a lot of wearing. So, time to learn how to go about replacing the worn-down toe of a hand-knit sock!

In this post, I show you how I go about it. There are probably many more ways to tackle this, this is just the one that I used here.

Materials used

Yarn: New sock yarn to work the new toe.

Tools: A pair of circular needles in size 2 mm (US 00) and a small circular in the same size.

Replacing the toe, step by step

I determined that all the lilac was bad, but that the pink variegated yarn was still good.

To start, I snipped some of the lilac yarn to free up the stitches in the pink and to put those on a circular needle.
This sock was originally knit toe-up, but the replacement toe will be knit the other way around. Because of this difference in knitting direction, I can’t unravel the lilac yarn easily. Instead, I have to tease it loose stitch by stitch with the smaller needle. This is not a problem, because it greatly reduces the risk of dropped stitches and running down stitches.
Tease all the pink stitches loose and put them on the needle.
When this is done, you have a loose, worn-out toe and a project ready for knitting.
Attach your new yarn and work the new toe.
In this picture, I’m ready to join the new yarn.

The result

The result of replacing the worn-down toe of a hand-knit sock: A sock with a new toe, ready for some more wearing!

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tutorial – avoiding holes at the underarm with top-down sweaters

Whenever you’re knitting a top-down sweater, there comes a point where you’re going to pick up the held stitches to work the sleeves. There will, however, be a difference between working those sleeves for a raglan or a circular yoke garment vs a set-in sleeve garment where the sleeve cap is worked top down with short rows. In the case of a raglan or circular yoke, stitches are often cast-on at the underarm. In the corners, where those stitches meet the live stitches being held for the sleeves, there is a risk of holes in the resulting garment. Instructions often say to close those up with the yarn tail. But, in my opinion, it’s better to avoid them than to fix them! That’s the reason that in my garment patterns, detailed instructions are included for this.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to avoid holes at the underarm with a circular yoke top-down sweater I currently have on the needles. It’s the Knitwords Sweater (Ravelry link!) by Cori Eichelberger.

Materials used

Avoiding holes at the underarm with top-down sweaters - materials

Garment WIP: Knitwords sweater work-in-progress, with the sleeves stitches held on waste yarn. You’ll also need yarn to work the sleeve. Here I’m using a DK weight sock wool.

Other materials: A circular knitting needle in the size needed for the garment gauge, bulb pins or removable stitch markers, and a crochet hook in a similar size as the knitting needles. The crochet hook is optional, but I find it makes picking up stitches a lot easier. Therefor, I certainly recommend using one.

Let’s get started!

To start, put the live stitches on the knitting needle.
I’m using a circular needle, but you could, of course, also use DPN’s. I often leave the waste yarn in for a bit, it can be removed once the sleeve has a bit of length and there is no risk of dropping stitches anymore.
In this picture, all stitches are replaced on the needle.
Here, you can see the stitches that were cast-on for the underarm. I have marked the first and the last stitch, because this will make it easier to know where to start and stop picking up those stitches.
Next, find the middle of those stitches (if you want the end-of-round to be in the middle). Insert the crochet hook in the middle of the “V” formed by the stitch….
… wrap the yarn around the hook and pull it through.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until you’ve worked the marked stitch.
In this example, I’ve left the picked up and knit stitches on the crochet hook to be placed on the knitting needle once they were all worked. You can, of course, also do that after every stitch worked.
Here, I’ve placed the stitches on the right-hand part of the circular knitting needle.
Now we’re getting to the actual “avoiding holes” part!
Do you see the 2 strands of yarn indicated by the triangles? This is where we have to pick up extra stitches to avoid those holes!
When picking up these stitches, you want to twist the strand, to close up the hole. To do so, insert your crochet hook as pictured…
… twist the hook around, then wrap the yarn around the hook and pull it through.
This is how it looks after the stitch has been placed on the needle.
Repeat steps 9-11 for the second strand.
Next, work over the live stitches until you’ve worked the last one.
In my case, this looks like this, because I’ve raised the back neck according to the method described here. As a consequence, the 2 strands of yarn to be picked up to avoid the holes, are more apart than on the other side of the armhole. When not raising the back neck according to this method, it would like similar to the other “corner”.
Here, I’ve repeated steps 9-11 on the first strand.
Next, I’ve picked up and knit stitches on the vertical section. And finally, I’ve repeated steps 9-11 on the last strand.
But we’re not ready yet! We’ve picked up an extra 4 stitches total for the corners. It may mean that you have some welcome extra ease in the upper arm. In that case, just follow the pattern for a larger size that has the same approx. number of sleeve stitches. Otherwise, we’ll need to decrease those extra stitches in the following round.
To do so, work to 1 stitch before the first picked-up-and-knit stitch in the corner.
Next, work 2 decreases over the 4 following stitches.
Here, I first worked a skp, followed by a k2tog. Repeat this step at the other corner.

The result of avoiding holes at the underarm with top-down sweaters

This is how I go about avoiding holes at the underarm with top-down sweaters. The picture below shows how it looks after a few more rounds have been worked. Pretty neat, right?!

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tutorial – knitting jogless stripes in the round

When working knitting in the round, you’re actually working in a spiral. This means, that when knitting stripes, you get a little “jog” when switching from the one to the other color. Of course, there are also many ways to help counteract this effect. Some methods only work well with very wide stripes. However, the one I’ll be showing here, also works well with narrow stripes.

Materials used

Yarn: Scheepjes Sunkissed, a fingering weight 100% cotton yarn (170 meters / 50 grams). Pictured here in the colors 7 Pistachio Ice and 6 Oceanside.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 3 mm (US 2 1/2) size with a cable length of 60 cm (24 inches).

Knitting jogless stripes in the round step by step

To start, finish your round with the old color, but do not yet move the end-of-round stitch marker to the other needle.
Next, place the last worked stitch back on to the left-hand needle.
Now take the other color yarn and knit the stitch you just placed back onto the left-hand needle.
With the new color, continue working the round until you’re one stitch before the end-of-round.
Insert the right-hand needle in the stitch below the one near the tip of the left-hand needle and place it back on the needle.
Make sure to place the stitch in the “old color” in front of the one in the “new color”
This is what covers the jog!
Finally, knit both loops together.
And that’s it!

Considering that I’m knitting this tee with a 100% cotton yarn at a relatively loose gauge, I find the end result to be amazingly jogless indeed. I mean, it’s not absolutely invisible, but still pretty hard to detect!

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tutorial – raising the back neck of circular yoke sweaters

Circular yoke sweaters and tees are pretty popular. No wonder, because they are a great canvas for colorwork or lace. However, some shaping for raising the back neck is really necessary to make it sit right. Without any shaping, chances are that when it sits right at the back, it sits too high in the front, giving that undesired choking feeling. Likewise, if it sits well in the front, it will probably sit too low in the back. And no, this isn’t something that some rigorous blocking will fix.

In this tutorial, I’ll show you first what exactly the problem is. And, of course, also how to fix it.

The problem

As you can see in the below picture, the main issue is that the human torso is not symmetrical back to front. The neckline is angled, which means that to arrive at the same level, there is more fabric length needed in the back than at the front. And completely circular yokes (as well as raglan sweaters) without any added back neck shaping are symmetrical and don’t have this extra length built in.

As visualized in the below picture, you may start out with the situation on the right. However, as the day goes by, the sweater will want to return to its base shape and the neckline in the front will creep up as pictured on the left.

The solution, of course, is to add shaping to give the yoke the extra fabric it needs in the back. In ready-made garments, you also see a difference in the depth of the yoke in the back vs the front of the garment. That difference is called the “front neck drop”, which is in essence the same as raising the back neck by a certain distance. They both refer to a difference in vertical distance to create a better fit in your garment at the neck.

Flat lay picture of a t-shirt showing the front neck drop — Front neck drop

Adding a wedge to the back — Front neck drop

Raising the back neck: How?

The usual solution is to use short rows to add extra length over a certain number of the back stitches. These can be added close to the neckline, above any yoke patterning, below the yoke patterning to lengthen the back or a combination of these two. The short rows themselves can be of the wrap & turn kind, German short rows, or any other type of short row you prefer.

But this is not my preferred way….

Instead, I prefer to work back and forth over the back stitches only to lengthen that part. I do this directly before dividing the stitches for the body and sleeves. Let me you show what I mean:

A flatlay picture of a circular yoke, with a wedge knitted on.

A schematic of a circular yoke, with an added wedge.

This is my Jade Clover design when it was still in progress. This is a really easy way to raise the back neck, because no short row calculations are needed. Just look up in the pattern how many stitches you have for the back of your garment. Next, work those back and forth for a bit. This is a very easy way to include back neck shaping in patterns that don’t have it. Or, to raise it a bit further than the pattern describes. I know I have done so occasionally. For example, when only a few short rows were included, and the sweater still looked a bit choky on the models.

Below is my Shoreham-by-Sea tee pictured. You can see how that bit of knitting looks after the stitches are divided and a bit of the body has been worked.

What about the sleeves?

As you can see, there is now a vertical section between the held stitches and the stitches that were cast on for the underarm. And yes, this does mean that along that edge, stitches will also have to be picked up and knit for the sleeves. In my patterns where this technique is used, I have taken this into account when calculating all stitches and decrease rows for the sleeves. Take a look at the picture below to see how it looks when the garment was all done:

In sweaters where you add this yourself, you will start out with more sleeve stitches than the pattern describes. It may mean that you have some welcome extra ease in the upper arm. In that case, just follow the pattern for a larger size that has the same approx. number of sleeve stitches. If you want narrower sleeves, you may need to take an extra look at the number of decrease rounds and the number of plain rounds between them.

On a final note, I have not yet tried this technique with raglan garments. However, I strongly suspect it will work just as nicely there as it does with circular yoke sweaters. When I do try it, I will report back!

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tutorial – two-stitch buttonhole in 2×2 rib

Knitting neat buttonholes can be a challenge, especially if you need the bigger sized ones. They often tend to sag or stretch at the edges. Fortunately, I recently came across this lovely technique to make a two-stitch buttonhole, right in the purl portion of (k2, p2) rib patterning. This method may seem a tad involved, but trust me, the result is really worth it!

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to work buttonholes in an 8 st repeat, with a buttonhole over the 2 stitches in every other purl section of the rib patterning.

Materials used

Yarn: Beiroa, an aran weight yarn from Retrosaria Pomar; a 100% Portuguese wool yarn, manufactured in Portugal, exclusively from the wool of free grazing Bordaleira Serra da Estrela sheep.

Knitting needles: A pair of Addi circular needles in size 4.5 mm (US7).

Knitting two-stitch buttonholes in 2×2 rib, step by step

This technique is worked over various rows. In a pattern (like the one for the cardigan-in-progress used in this tutorial), you can expect instructions like these:

Buttonhole row 1 (RS): *K1, kfb, (p1, psso) twice, sl st back to left needle, k2tog, k1, p2; rep from *.
Buttonhole row 2 (WS): *K2, p2, you have then reached the first bound off st, m1bl, p2; rep from *.
Buttonhole row 3 (RS): *K2, m1rp, p1, k2, p2; rep from *.

Let’s get started!

First, work to the 2 knit stitches just before the purl stitches where you want to place your buttonhole.
Knit 1 stitch.
In this step, work a kfb increase in the next stitch.
Now purl the next stitch on the needle….
… insert the tip of your left-hand needle into the second stitch on the right-hand needle ….
… and pass it over the purl stitch.
Repeat steps 4 to 6 once.
Next, slide the first stitch that’s on the right-hand needle back to your left-hand needle.
Next, knit the first 2 stitches on the left-hand needle together (k2tog), decrease the extra stitch away.
To finish the last few stitches of the repeat, work k1, p2 over the 3 next stitches.
Now you can repeat these steps until you have the correct number of buttonholes, and then continue with the button band until you’ve reached the end of the row. It can be useful to use stitch markers around the buttonhole repeats, to make it easier to find your place on the next row.
Buttonhole row 2: Work the button band on the WS until you’ve reached your marker. Then work k2, p2 over the next 4 stitches.
You have then reached the first bound off st.
Now work a m1bl increase.
Next, purl 2 stitches to finish the buttonhole repeat on the WS.
Again, continue and repeat as needed to the end of the row.
Buttonhole row 3: Work to the start of the buttonhole repeat and work k2 over the first 2 stitches.
As you can see in the result of the last step, we’ve now reached the newly cast-on stitch. To make sure the buttonhole edge is nice and tight, we’ve not cast on 2. But, of course, we do need two stitches in theta purl section. So, to remedy that, we’ll be using the extra slack in the loose thread of yarn to make that extra stitch. To do so, work a m1pr: a right leaning m1 stitch, worked purl-wise.
To finish the buttonhole, work a p1 in next stitch, followed by k2.

The result

Below, you can see the result of working this two-stitch buttonhole. Really neat, right?!

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