The fountain stitch is an elegant lace pattern, that looks rather like water flowing from a fountain. Hence, the name! It really looks much more intricate and complex than it really is. The stitch pattern consists of yarn overs and a left-leaning double decrease. You can easily adjust the looks of this lace pattern, by replacing the decrease by a centered double decrease. In this example, I have worked the pattern in acrylic yarn, the swatch has not been blocked. The patterning will pop a lot more if you do block your project.
This stitch pattern is worked as a multiple of 4 stitches + 1, and in a four-row repeat. Something to keep in mind, is that the increases are decreased away again on another row, so your stitch count will differ from row to row. Please note that I’ve added 2 edge stitches in garter stitch on both sides of the swatch.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, in the color Vintage Pink.
Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
sl1-k2tog-psso – Slip next stitch, knit 2 together, then pass slipped stitch over.
st(s) – stitch(es)
Fountain stitch
Row 1 (RS): K1, * yo, k3, yo, k1; rep from * to end. Row 2 (WS): Purl. Row 3: K1, * k2, sl1-k2tog-psso, k3; rep from * to end. Row 4: Purl.
Repeat rows 1-4 for pattern until desired length.
In the below pictures, you see the patterning first from the right, and then also from the wrong side of the fabric:
Fountain stitch as seen from the right sideFountain stitch as seen from the wrong side
To get an impression of how this stitch looks as an all-over pattern:
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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:Â 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!
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.
The hexagon stitch is a very striking stitch that is nevertheless not hard to knit. It’s made by working a yarn over and passing it over a group of stitches. This sequence is alternated, making it look like little hexagons. Because of the passed-over yarn overs, the fabric is a bit tighter than regular stockinette. It shares its tendency to roll, though.
This stitch pattern is worked as a multiple of 4 stitches, and in a four-row repeat. Please note that I’ve added 2 edge stitches in garter stitch on both sides of the swatch.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, in the color Lime.
Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
yo-k3-pass yo over – yarn over, knit 3 stitches, pass the yarn over, over the 3 knit stitches
rep – repeat
st(s) – stitch(es)
Grand staggered eyelet stitch
Row 1 (RS): *Yo-k3-pass yo over, k3; rep from * to end. (6 sts) Row 2 (WS): Purl. Row 3: *K3, yo-k3-pass yo over; rep from * to end. Row 4: Purl.
Repeat rows 1-4 for pattern until desired length.
In the below pictures, you see the patterning first from the right, and then also from the wrong side of the fabric:
Hexagon stitch as seen from the RS.Hexagon stitch as seen from the WS.
To get an impression of how this stitch looks as an all-over pattern:
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.
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
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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The grand staggered eyelet stitch is a bold lace pattern consisting of double yarn overs, flanked by left- and right-leaning decreases. In this version, the second half of the patterning is offset by 2 stitches when compared with the first half. You can, of course, also just repeat the first 4 rows of the patterning all-over. This will result in the eyelets neatly stacked above each other. In this example, I have worked the pattern in acrylic yarn, the swatch has not been blocked. The patterning will pop a lot more if you do block your project.
This stitch pattern is worked as a multiple of 4 stitches + 6, and in an eight-row repeat. Please note that I’ve added 2 edge stitches in garter stitch on both sides of the swatch.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, in the color Tea Rose.
Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
Row 1 (RS): K1, k2tog, * yo twice, skp, k2tog; rep from * 3 sts before end, yo twice, skp, k1. (10 sts) Row 2 (WS): P2, (p1, k1) in double yo, * p2, (p1, k1) in double yo; rep from * to 2 sts before end, p2. Row 3: Knit. Row 4: Purl. Row 5: K1, yo, * skp, k2tog, yo twice; rep from * to 5 sts before end, skp, k2tog, yo, k1. Row 6: P4, * (p1, k1) in double yo, p2; rep from * to 2 sts before M, p2. Row 7: Knit. Row 8: Purl.
Repeat rows 1-8 for pattern until desired length.
In the below pictures, you see the patterning first from the right, and then also from the wrong side of the fabric:
Grand staggered eyelet stitch as seen from the right sideGrand staggered eyelet stitch as seen from the wrong side
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.
Sometimes, you just want a knit that quickly gives results. This design uses aran weight yarn, which definitely delivers on that! The patterning in the Psychedelica shawl may look challenging, but if you’ve ever knit lace, you can absolutely work this too.
This shawl is knit from the top-down in one piece, starting at the neck edge with a garter tab. The instructions for the psychedelic patterning are both charted and written out.
Pay what you want: (minimum €6.95)
€
Difficulty level
The Psychedelica shawl is worked from the top-down, starting with a garter tab cast-on. The psychedelic patterning is worked on both the RS and the WS of the work. Stitches used include knit, knit tbl, purl, purl tbl, m1bl, k2tog, k2tog tbl, skp, p2tog, and p2tog tbl.
This pattern is therefor suitable for the intermediate to advanced knitter.
Sizes and finished measurements
One size: Span width of 215 cm (84 ¾ inches) measured along the upper edge, and a depth of 99 cm (39 inches), measured after blocking.
Adjust the size of this shawl by using lighter or heavier yarn and/or working fewer (or more) repeats of the various sections of the shawl. This will, of course, change the amount of yarn needed.
Pattern details
Gauge: Approx. 10 sts / 19 rows = 10 cm (4 inches) over striped stockinette, measured after blocking. Gauge is not critical in this design, but should give you a fabric that you like with the yarn used.
Pattern languages included: English.
Digital PDF has 5 pages (letter size)
Yarn
Garnstudio Drops Big Fabel (75% wool, 25% nylon; 150 m (164 yds) / 100 g) in the following colors and quantities:
C1: 450 m (492 yds) / 300 g) in 105 – turquoise
C2: 300 m (328 yds) / 200 g) in 102 – green
This particular yarn is discontinued, but could be substituted with Garnstudio Drops Big Merino (100% wool; 75 m (82 yds) / 50 g). Substitute a plied aran weight yarn in solid or tonal colors for a similar result.
Materials
Size 4.5 mm (US 7) / 100 cm (40 inches) circular needles were used for the sample shawl. Use needles appropriate for the yarn chosen.
Yarn needle.
4 stitch markers to indicate the center stitch and the edge stitches.
Stitch markers to use in between patterning repeats (optional).
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!
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.
The crescent stitch uses both “Cable 3 Left (C3L)” as “Cable 3 Right (C3R)” stitches to create the wavy lines visible in the swatch pictured. Due to all the cabling, it’s not a very fast stitch pattern to work. This may, however, be improved if you can do these cable stitches without the use of a cable needle. I’m not a good enough cable knitter to manage it with any time savings. But perhaps you can!
This stitch pattern is worked as a multiple of 3 stitches + 2, and in a six-row repeat. Please note that I’ve added 2 edge stitches in garter stitch on both sides of the swatch.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, in the color 128 Lime Green.
Needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown. You will also need a cable needle.
Stitches used
C3L (Cable 3 left) – Slip next st onto cable needle and hold at front of work, knit next 2 sts from left-hand needle, then knit st from cable needle
C3R (Cable 3 right) – Slip next 2 sts onto cable needle and hold at back of work, knit next st from left-hand needle, then knit 2 sts from cable needle
Row 3: K1, *C3R; rep from * to 1 st before end, k1.
Row 5: K1, *C3L; rep from * to 1 st before end, k1.
Row 6: Purl.
Repeat rows 1-6 for pattern until desired length.
In the below pictures, you see the patterning first from the right, and then also from the wrong side of the fabric:
Crescent stitch as seen from the right sideCrescent stitch as seen from the wrong side
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.
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.
Front neck dropRaising the back neck
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:
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!
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.
The bamboo lace stitch is in looks very similar to the regular bamboo stitch. However, it’s constructed quite differently. And, of course, the looks are much more lacy! Please keep in mind, though, that the above swatch is worked in a worsted weight acrylic. When this stitch pattern is knit in a yarn that blocks out nicely, say a wool or cotton yarn, it opens up a lot more than it looks like here.
This stitch pattern is worked as a multiple of 3 stitches + 2, and in a one-row repeat. In other words: it’s worked exactly the same on both right and wrong side rows. Please note that I’ve added 2 edge stitches in garter stitch on both sides of the swatch.
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, in the color 128 Lime Green.
Knitting needles: This is a pair of straights that I picked up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
sl wyib – slip 1 stitch purl-wise with the yarn held in the back
k2tog tbl – knit 2 stitches together through the back loop
st(s) – stitch(es)
Bamboo lace
Row 1 (right side): k1, *yo, sl1 wyib, k1; rep from * to last st before end, k1.
Repeat row 1 for pattern until desired length.
In the below pictures, you see the patterning first from the right, and then also from the wrong side of the fabric:
Bamboo lace stitch as seen from the right sideBamboo lace stitch as seen from the wrong side
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.
