knitting tutorial Archives - Page 2 of 3

tutorial – inserting an afterthought life line

As shown in the post about life lines, these are very handy. They can be used for added security when you’re sure that a certain stretch of knitting is error-free. Just insert the life line and you have a safe place in your knitting to rip back to in the event you make a mistake in your knitting. But what to do when you’ve forgotten to add in a life line?

No worries! In that case you can insert an afterthought life line. In this post I’ll show you how.

Materials used

Yarn: * Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn. Pictured here in the color 155 Vintage Pink.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Darning needle: * Hiya Hiya Darn It Yarn Needle, or any other tapestry needle, threaded with yarn.

Crochet cotton: Manuela N° 5 from Schoeller+Stahl, a 100% mercerized cotton 6-ply thread (200 m (219 yds) / 50 g)

Inserting an afterthought life line step by step

In this example, I’m using the same stockinette swatch as for the previous life line tutorial. I’ll use it to show you how to insert a life line using a darning needle and thread. When doing so in a piece of knitted lace, you may find it easiest to do so after a plain knit of purl row if that’s possible in your patterning.

First, make sure you have your thread and darning needle ready.
Don’t cut your thread too short, or you may not have enough length to thread through all stitches, and allow for some stretch.
Next, identify the row and stitches to insert the life line in, take your darning needle and insert it through the first couple of stitches on the needle.
For this, it is of importance to correctly select which “leg” of the stitch to insert the darning needle under. In stockinette stitch fabric, the individual stitches look like a “V”. When inserting the needle, make sure to insert pass it underneath the right leg and over the left leg of the “V”. This way the stitches are mounted correctly on the life line. When doing it like this, you just have to follow the path of the life line when putting the fabric back on your knitting needle, to correctly mount the stitches there too. In other words: not twisted! Take care not to pierce any strands of yarn.
After the first few stitches, pull the cotton thread through, taking care to leave a tail outside the piece of knitting.
Then, you can insert the darning needle into the next couple of stitches and so on, to put all stitches on the thread.
Now we have to secure the life line.
To do so, I prefer making a loose knot in the ends of the cotton thread.
And this is the result!
When the life line is no longer needed, just undo the knot and pull the thread out of the knitting. Or follow the path of the life line through the stitches with a knitting needle before ripping back your knitting…

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 – using life lines

You may have heard about life lines and wonder about what they are and why they’re useful. I’ll tell you all about it in this post! In short: A life line in knitting is a temporarily inserted thread, to make sure that any dropped stitches can’t unravel down beyond the line you’ve inserted. This is particularly useful when knitting lace with a smooth yarn. Working lace back up with the correct stitches is much more complex than regular stockinette!

A life line can also be used for added security when you’re sure that a certain stretch of knitting is error-free. Just insert the life line and you have a safe place in your knitting to rip back to in the event you make a mistake in your knitting after that.

The technique for adding a life line is the very same as for putting live stitches on a piece of waste yarn or stitch holder, to work further on later on. The only difference is that with just adding a life line, the stitches are kept on the needle. With putting stitches on waste yarn, the stitches are pushed off the needle. The latter I also use when trying out the fit of sweaters, when the length of the cable of my circular knitting needles doesn’t allow for trying the piece on.

Many yarns are suitable to be used as a life line. Personally, though, I prefer yarn that is

Thinner than my working yarn, so it doesn’t distort the surrounding stitches.
A different color than my working yarn, so I can see where it is in my knitted fabric.
Smooth, so it’s easy to both insert and remove it.

For these reasons I usually use crochet thread, a relatively heavy one.

Materials used

Yarn: * Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color 155 Vintage Pink.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Darning needle: * Hiya Hiya Darn It Yarn Needle, or any other tapestry needle, threaded with yarn.

Crochet cotton: Manuela N° 5 from Schoeller+Stahl, a 100% mercerized cotton 6-ply thread (200 m (219 yds) / 50 g)

Inserting a life line step by step

In this example I’m using a little stockinette swatch to show you how to insert a life line using a darning needle and thread. When doing so in a piece of knitted lace, you may find it easiest to do so after a plain knit of purl row if that’s possible in your patterning.

First, make sure you have your thread and darning needle ready.
Don’t cut your thread too short, or you may not have enough length to thread through all stitches, and allow for some stretch.
Next, take your darning needle and insert it through the first couple of stitches on the needle.
Move the darning needle behind the front leg of the various stitches. Take care not to pierce any strands of yarn.
After the first few stitches, pull the cotton thread through, taking care to leave a tail outside the piece of knitting.
Then, you can insert the darning needle into the next couple of stitches and so on, to put all stitches on the thread.
Now we have to secure the life line.
To do so, I prefer making a loose knot in the ends of the cotton thread.
And this is the result!
When the life line is no longer needed, just undo the knot and pull the thread out of the knitting. Or follow the path of the life line through the stitches with a knitting needle before ripping back your knitting…

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tutorial – working a purl 1 below (p1b)

Tutorial on working a purl 1 below (p1b)

There are cases in which skipping the row on your needle for particular stitches is desired, and one is to knit or purl in the row below that one. In other words: you knit/purl into the stitch below where you normally would, exactly as the name suggests. Think, for example, off Fisherman’s Rib, but also off the bunny ears yo stitch, on its following wrong-side row.

The challenge in working this stitch is recognizing the stitch to insert your needle in. So that’s what I’ll be showing you in this tutorial. I’ll be using the same project I also used for the bunny ears yo tutorial, so please don’t be alarmed by all the lace. The p1b stitch in itself does not involve any lace knitting. To show you the difference between using a regular purl and a p1b stitch in bunny ear yo lace, take a look below:

bunny ears yo without p1b — With regular p

See how they differ? In the one on the left there is a horizontal thread over the yo part of the stitch. In the picture on the right the new stitch is made catching that horizontal thread too and thus keeping the yarn over open!

Materials used

Yarn: Nuna by Mirasol Yarn (40% merino, 40% silk, 20% rayon from bamboo; 175 m (191 yds) / 50 g), here in the color 1046 Coral.

Needles: To be honest, I don’t recall what the brand is of the needles I used in this tutorial. I do know I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Working a p1b step by step

In patterns, you may encounter the following description of this stitch:
Purl 1 below (p1b): Purl into the stitch 1 row below the one on the needle by inserting the needle from back to front. Purl this stitch, then pull the worked stitch and the stitch above off the needle together.
But how to actually do this? Read on!

First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the stitch.
See that first stitch on the left-hand needle? That’s the yo in the middle of the bey stitch where I’ll be making the p1b stitch.
Insert the right-hand needle purl wise
Normally, you’d insert the needle directly into the loop that’s on the left-hand needle. However, in this case we want to insert the needle into the stitch below that one.
Now wrap your working yarn around the needle and pull it through.
See that you’re actually pulling it through 2 stitches at once? That is, the one on the needle and the one directly below it. To finish the stitch just slip the top stitch off the left-hand needle without actually working it. Because the fabric is secured by purling into the stitch below it, the stitch won’t run down unraveling.
The below picture shows how it looks on the purl side of the fabric after I’ve worked a regular purl stitch in the 3rd and last stitch of the bey.
You can see the 2 strands that are caught by the p1b pretty well.
Turning the fabric around, this is how it looks on the right (knit) side of the fabric.
I really like how it looks!

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tutorial – working the bunny ears yo stitch

In this tutorial I’m going to show you a stitch that I’m using in a new design: the bunny ears yarn over stitch, or “bey” for short. It uses a bunny ears decrease combined with a yarn over. Now, you may wonder what a bunny ears decrease is. I’ll tell you! It’s a symmetrical way of decreasing 3 stitches to only 2! I’ll be making a tutorial on this decrease and it’s variations soon.

Back to the bunny ears yo stitch. In this stitch a yarn over is placed between both parts of the decrease, essentially negating the decrease. Adding the yo in between both parts of the decrease make it look like 2 directional decreases on both sides of a yo, but without actually increasing or decreasing anything. The result is a very pretty stitch that does wonderfully in lace patterning as pictured here. Let’s get started with how to actually work this stitch!

Materials used

Yarn: Nuna by Mirasol Yarn (40% merino, 40% silk, 20% rayon from bamboo; 175 m (191 yds) / 50 g), here in the color 1046 Coral.

Needles: To be honest, I don’t recall what the brand is of the needles I used in this tutorial. I do know I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Working the bunny ears yo stitch step by step

In patterns, you may encounter the following description of this stitch:
Bunny ears yo (bey): Knit 2 stitches together but leave the second stitch on the left needle, yo, next work skp over the next 2 stitches.
But how to actually do this? Read on!

First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the stitch.
See those 3 stitches on the left-hand needle? That’s where I’ll be making the bey stitch.
Next, insert the tip of the right-hand needle into the first 2 stitches at the same time as if to knit.
Over these stitches, we’ll be doing the first steps of a k2tog.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
… and pull the yarn through the 2 stitches.
Next, slide only 1 of the 2 original stitches of the left-hand needle.
With a regular k2tog, both stitches would be moved off the needle. So this is where it starts to go different.
Next, wrap the yarn around the needle.
This is where we make the “yarn over” part of the stitch.
Now we’re starting the left leaning decrease part of the stitch.
This we’ll be working on the 2 remaining stitches on the left-hand needle: 1 stitch we haven’t handled yet, and 1 stitch that we didn’t move off the needle when working the k2tog right-leaning decrease. This part of the stitch can be worked both as ssk and skp, but since I personally prefer skp I’ll be showing this in the tutorial.

To start insert the tip of the right-hand needle into the first stitch as if to knit …
… and slip it onto the right-hand needle without actually knitting it.
This is how it then looks:
Next, we are going to knit the second stitch.
To do so, we start with inserting the right-hand needle into the first stitch on the other needle as shown below.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
. …pull it through the stitch you inserted the right-hand needle in…
…and slip the original stitch off the left-hand needle.
Next, insert the left-hand needle into the second stitch counted from the tip of the right-hand needle…
… after that, pull it over the first stitch from the tip of the right-hand needle to complete the decrease.
Do you see how it slants to the left? With this the bunny ears yarn over stitch itself is finished. But, for optimal results, we’re not done yet. Take a look at the next section to see why.

Working the WS row after the bey row

After working a row where bunny ear yo’s are worked there, of course, also follows a wrong side purl row. However, when working regular purl stitches over the bey stitches, this creates a horizontal thread over the yo part of the stitch. This is, of course, no problem if you like how this looks. You can see this below on the left. But, if you prefer the bey stitch to really look like a big yo, flanked by directional decreases, we really have to do something different from a regular purl stitch. The solution is working a purl 1 below or p1b instead. This gives the result as shown on the right:

Please note that the picture on the left was right at the beginning of my project, in the set-up section. The other one was further on in the body of the project, hence the difference in surrounding fabric.

A tutorial for the purl 1 below or p1b will follow soon!

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tutorial – working a p2tog tbl

Tutorial on working the p2tog tbl decrease

Last time I showed you how to do a decrease worked on the wrong side of the fabric, that looks like a k2tog right leaning decrease on the right side: p2tog. In this tutorial it’s time to focus on the left leaning equivalent. In other words: a decrease worked on the wrong side, that looks like a skp or ssk left leaning decrease on the right side of the fabric. This is the “purl 2 stitches together through the back loop” decrease, or “p2tog tbl” for short.

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 128 Lime Green.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Working a p2tog tbl 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 4 stitches in from the left side of the swatch.
Pull down the fabric below the 2 stitches you’ll be working the decrease on
This will make it easier to both see where to insert the needle and to actually insert it.
Insert the needle
Now insert the needle from left to right through the back loop of the first two stitches on the left-hand needle.
Wrap the working yarn around the right-hand needle …
… and pull the yarn through the two stitches
To finish the decrease slip the two stitches worked of the needle.
This is how this then looks.
The result
When viewed from the right side of the fabric, this decrease looks exactly look a skp!

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Working a m2 aka double m1 increase

There are various ways of working a double increase. Take for example a double yarn over. In this tutorial I will focus on the make 2 increase or m2 for short. It can also be referred to as a “double make 1” (m1) increase. It basically consists of working 2 m1 increases directly after one other in the same strand of yarn between 2 stitches in the row directly below the one you’re currently working.

The m1 increase is a directional one. This means that there is a left leaning version (m1l) and a right leaning version (m1r). The m2 version that consists of first working a m1r, followed by a m1l, makes a very decorative horizontal strand in the fabric. This is the version I’ll show you below. Different looks can be achieved by first working a m1l, followed by a m1r, working m1r twice, or a m1l twice. Experiment and choose the one that gives the look you like for a particular project!

Please do note, that since this increase uses the strand of yarn already there between stitches, it tends to tighten up the knitting. For this reason I advise to work one or more plain rows between increase rows, especially when stacking them.

Materials used

Yarn: * Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color 128 Lime Green.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Working a m2 increase step by step

First take your knitting. Here I’ve continued with the little swatch I used with a previous tutorial.
Knit to the spot where you want to make the increase.
First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the increase. In this case, I will be making the M2 increase 5 stitches in from the left edge. I’d make the increase in the middle of my swatch for a truly centered result, but alas, my swatch has an odd number of stitches.
First we start the m1r increase
To do so, lift the thread between the stitch just knit and the next one from the back with your left needle.
Insert the right-hand knitting needle into the front of the loop.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
… and pull in through, slide the stitch of the left-hand needle to complete the m1r part of this double increase.
Next, we’re going to tackle the m1l part of the increase.
To do so, lift the thread between the stitch just knit and the next one from the front with your left-hand needle.
Insert the right-hand knitting needle into the back of the loop.
Wrap the yarn around the needle…
… and pull in through, slide the stitch of the left-hand needle to complete the m1l part of this double increase.
This is how it looks after this increase has been worked in 3 RS rows.
Pretty, isn’t it? And that’s all there is to it!

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tutorial – pick up and knit

Turquoise swatch on a blue knitting needle against a white background with the text "pick up and knit".

In an earlier tutorial I already showed you how to pick up stitches. But what is the difference between “pick up and knit” and “picking up stitches”? The main difference is that with “pick up and knit” new yarn is introduced to form new stitches. “Picking up stitches” is merely placing loops from an edge of the existing piece of knitting on a knitting needle.

Pick up and knit, like just picking up stitches, is a way to add knitting to an existing piece of fabric, independent of the original knitting direction. It can be used to create finished edges around necklines, button bands, etc.

Materials used

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

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Planning your pick up rate

A stitch is usually wider than it’s tall: it has a different row gauge than stitch gauge. This has as a result that picking up stitches along vertical edges at a rate of 1:1 usually doesn’t give an optimal result. In other words: we have to plan in advance how often to pick up and knit the stitches to avoid puckering and ruffling in the newly added piece of knitting. For this it’s useful to divide the edge into sections, using stitch markers. The possible sections would be vertical edge, diagonal edge and horizontal edge. The latter would be picking up along a bind-off or cast-on edge, where every stitch in the edge equals a stitch to be picked up and knit.

For the vertical and diagonal edges, if no ratio is specified in your pattern, a rule of thumb is to pick up approx. two stitches for every three rows or three stitches for every four rows. It’s also possible to calculate the pick-up rate exactly. To do so, measure the gauge of your blocked piece or swatch and pick up the correct number of stitches per 10 cm/inches along the edge to match your stitch gauge.

Pick up and knit step by step

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to pick up stitches from the bind-off edge of a piece of simple stockinette. For this I made a little swatch. Of course, you can also pick up stitches along a cast on or side edge. Some people prefer using a crochet hook to pick up and knit, but in this example I’m just using knitting needles. Time to get started!

Find the most right stitch on the edge
With picking up stitches we work from right to left, with the right side of the fabric facing. We start by finding the outer right stitch on the edge and insert the knitting needle underneath it. In this example I’m working on a bind-off edge and I’m inserting my needle underneath both legs of the v. You can, of course, pick up only one of the strands, but that will result in a looser, less tidy connection. When working on a vertical edge, insert your needle under both strands of the edge stitch.
Wrapping the working yarn around the needle
Next is to wrap your working yarn around the knitting needle (or crochet hook). Leave enough of a tail to weave it in later on. About 15 cm or 6 inches should be enough.
Pulling the yarn through
Now pull the yarn wrapped around the needle through the fabric to form a stitch.
Repeat steps 1-3
Now just repeat steps 1-3 starting at the next spot where you want to pick up and knit a stitch until the whole edge has been worked. The result will look something like this:

What about garter stitch?

Yes, you can also pick up and knit from a fabric in garter stitch, or any kind of stitch, actually. The nice thing of garter stitch is that it has those typical garter bumps or ridges. This makes it very easy to pick up and knit a stitch every other row, when working on a side/vertical edge. Just insert your needle underneath a loop of the ridge! In the picture below that’s exactly what I did.

Pick up and knit from a garter stitch edge

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tutorial – picking up stitches

Picking up stitches, not to be confused with “pick up and knit”, is a knitting technique that most knitters will encounter sooner or later. It’s a way to continue working on an otherwise finished edge of a knitting project. It can be used to add a finishing around necklines, to add button bands or to make a project seamless for example.

The main difference with “pick up and knit” is that with plain “picking up stitches” no new yarn is added and no new stitches are formed. In other words: loops from an edge of the existing piece of knitting are placed on a knitting needle. That’s it.

Materials used

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

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Where and what to pick up?

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to pick up stitches from the side of a piece of simple stockinette. For this I made a little swatch. Of course, you can also pick up stitches along a cast on or bind off edge.

Turquoise knitted swatch in stockinette stitch on a white background.

If you take a look at the picture below, you can see that I’m holding the swatch in such a way that one of the vertical edges is facing. Do you see that the outer column of stitches forms a (somewhat wobbly) line of v’s?

Turquoise knitted swatch held such that the edge is visible.

In the following picture you can see it a bit more clearly. I’ve inserted the knitting needle underneath both legs of the v at the edge of the fabric.

Picking up stitches; where to insert the knitting needle? Turquoise knitted swatch with a blue knitting needle inserted underneath both legs of a v-shaped stitch at the edge of the fabric.

However, when merely picking up stitches, it is very hard to pick up both legs of every v/stitch along the edge. Therefor usually only one of the legs is picked up. For example the left one:

Picking up stitches: Turquoise knitted swatch with a blue knitting needle inserted underneath the left leg of a v-shaped stitch at the edge of the fabric.

Or the right one:

Picking up stitches: Turquoise knitted swatch with a blue knitting needle inserted underneath the right leg of a v-shaped stitch at the edge of the fabric.

Picking up stitches step by step

Find the most right stitch on the edge
With picking up stitches we work from right to left. We start by finding the outer right stitch on the edge and insert the knitting needle underneath one of the legs of the v. here I’ve chosen to insert underneath the left leg, which is the one closest to me.
Continue picking up stitches
Next I move one stitch to the left and pick that one up. Again by inserting the knitting needle underneath the leg of the v closest to me.
The result
When all stitches along the edge are picked up, this is the result:

Pick up rate

In this example I picked up 1 stitch for every row of the stockinette. However, a stitch is usually wider than it’s tall: it has a different row gauge than stitch gauge. This has as a result that picking up stitches along vertical edges at a rate of 1:1 usually doesn’t give an optimal result.

If no ratio is specified in your pattern, a rule of thumb is to pick up approx. two stitches for every three rows or three stitches for every four rows. It’s also possible to calculate the pick-up rate exactly. To do so, measure the gauge of your blocked piece or swatch and pick up the correct number of stitches per 10 cm/inches to match your stitch gauge. This would also work for any diagonal edges you may encounter. Take for example when picking up stitches for finishing off neck edges.

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tutorial – reading knitting charts

Many knitting patterns contain shaping or patterning. The latter may be lace, cables, knit/purl patterning, color work or a combination of these. These instructions may be written out completely. But, especially with more complex patterning, this can become a veritable wall of text pretty soon.

Enter charts! A knitting chart is a compact visual representation of the knitting project shown from the right (or front) side. Each box on a chart represents a stitch, and every chart includes a legend explaining what to do for each symbol included. My patterns always contain both charted and written out instructions, because there just are differences in how people parse information best. That said, charts can be intimidating if you don’t quite know how to read them.

So, in this tutorial I’ll tell you all about it, for both knitting flat and knitting in the round.

Where to start reading knitting charts?

Yes, there are differences in reading charts for knitting flat back and forth and for knitting in the round. There are, however, more commonalities than differences. I’ll show you, using the chart for my (free!) Autumn Leaves Shawl pattern.

As you can see, there are numbers at the top and at the bottom. These represent the stitches that are to be worked horizontally. Also, there are numbers at the sides of the chart, these indicate the rows or rounds to be worked. Since this is a chart for flat knitting, the numbers are alternated on the right and left side of the chart.

The rule of thumb is always to begin reading your chart at the box marked “1” for both stitch and row indication. In this chart that’s in the lower right corner. Then, proceed going left to the stitch marked “2” in the same row etc until you’ve finished the row.

Since this is a chart for flat knitting, after we’ve finished the row we have to turn the work. Next is row number 2, this one is to be worked from the left to the right. If you have your knitting in front of you, it really makes sense. You’re working the back (the wrong side) of the work, but looking at the chart from the front, so the chart is to be worked backwards when compared with the previous row.

If you’re working in the round, all vertical numbers will only be on one side of the chart. See for an example the chart above. And since every round is worked with the right side showing (towards you), you just move up vertically and work the second round from the bottom from right to left as you did for the first round.

Decoding the symbols

As I told you above, every chart includes a legend. The legend is very important, because it defines the stitches or colors that correspond with the stitches on the chart. Quite good to know when trying reading knitting charts! Also, do make sure to closely examine the legend before you begin knitting. There may be different meanings to certain symbols in the particular chart, than you’re used to.

In the leafy border chart posted above, there are 2 stitches for which the symbols have a different meaning on the wrong side and right side of the fabric. In this example, a blank box is knitted on the right side (odd rows) and purled on the wrong side (even rows). Boxes containing a black dot are purled on the right side (odd rows) and knitted on the wrong side (even rows).

The other stitches used, also have their wrong side equivalents. They are, however, not mentioned in the chart because they are not used on wrong side rows. This makes the chart “cleaner”.

Another symbol you may encounter is the gray “no stitch” box. These may be used in a chart to make the charted representation more clear. When you encounter one, just ignore and skip it in the chart. It does not represent a stitch to be worked on your needle. As a matter of fact, the leafy border chart also had some of these stitches on the left side of the chart. I just hid them to make the chart look more clean and save toner/ink for folks wanting to print it.

Repeats

Many patterns feature a repeat. This is a section of patterning that is to be repeated both horizontally and vertically. Repeats are typically indicated by a box or frame in a contrasting color. In the example below a red frame is used.

Example chart for knitting flat back and forth.

In this chart, stitches 1-8 are to be repeated until 1 stitch before the end of the row. After that stitch number 9 is worked. When working repeats, it may be useful to place a marker between the repeats. This helps you keep your place and makes it easier to identify and correct mistakes. Once all 4 rows in the repeat are worked, they can be repeated too if the pattern asks for it.

Reading your knitting = reading your chart

Remember that I said that a knitting chart is a compact visual representation of the knitting project shown from the right side? Let’s put both the chart and the resulting piece of knitting next to each other:

Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of the knitted leaf detail in the same orientation as the chart. So, trust me when I say that the leaf pictured above, was started at it’s upper right corner. The stitches that were bound off in row 18, can be seen in the lower left corner of the shawl edge.

Do you see that the elements in the chart are very recognizable in the resulting knitting? Take for example the rows with “yo, k1, yo”, in the knitted leaf they form the very recognizable “midrib” and “veins” of the leaf. Similarly, the centered double decrease in row 17 forms the apex of the leaf.

In other words: once you get more comfortable in reading your knitting, this will also enable you to see at a glance where you are in the pattern (chart) and whether any mistakes are made. If there are any errors, this will usually be noticed because things don’t “look” right, don’t line up correctly or because there are not enough stitches to work the chart.

And that’s how to go about reading knitting charts!

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tutorial – working a double yo

A yarn over (abbreviated as “yo”) is a simple way to increase stitches and deliberately make a little hole in your knitting. I wrote all about it in this tutorial. A double yarn over is exactly what it seems to be: a yarn over that creates two new stitches instead of a single one as with a regular yarn over. And yes, the hole that it creates when using this stitch in lace is bigger as well. In patterns, it’s sometimes referred to as “yarn over twice”.

This tutorial will give you step-by-step instructions on how to work the “double yarn over” increase.

Materials used

Yarn: * Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color 155 Vintage Pink.

Needles: * KnitPro Zing Fixed Circular Needles. In this tutorial, I used the 4 mm (US 6) size with a cable length of 80 cm (32 inches).

Working a double yo step by step

For this tutorial I made a little swatch in stockinette, with garter stitch borders to prevent it from curling.

1. First, work your way across the row until you’ve reached the point where you want to make the increase. In this case, I will be making the double yo increase 2 sts in from each of the garter stitch borders. But, I don’t want to increase the total number of stitches on my needles. This means that for every double yo worked, there should also be 2 stitches decreased. In this example I’ll be working a k2tog before the double yo and an skp after it.

2. In the below picture I’ve worked the k2tog decrease.

3. To make the double yo, wrap the yarn around the right-hand needle twice. To do so, do the following twice: move the working yarn from the back to the front between the needles and then over the right-hand needle back to the back of the work.

Wrapping the yarn around the needle twice

4. In the following picture I worked the skp decrease directly after the double yo.

5. This is how it looks after working the entire row, with one more repeat of steps 2-4:

The wrong side steps of working a double yo

6. Now we’re going to work the wrong side of the fabric. This is where the magic for making a double yarn over really happens. First, work to the point where you encounter the double yo loop.

7. The trick with working the double yo on the wrong side row, is to work both a knit and a purl stitch into the double yarn over loop. Both are needed to allow the second stitch to remain a separate one. The order, however, doesn’t matter. I prefer to start with a purl stitch when working stockinette, because that takes out the counting: just purl along until you encounter a double yarn over loop, then work a knit stitch as your second stitch into the loop. In the picture below, I just worked the purl stitch and moved that part of the loop off my left-hand needle.

8. Next, I worked a knit stitch into the second part of the double yarn over loop:

9. This is how it looks after the complete WS row has been worked:

10. In the below picture a few more rows in stockinette have been worked. Do you see there are 2 columns of knit stitches above each double yo?

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