Garter stitch is quite simple when worked flat: Just knit every row, turn your work, and the familiar ridges appear almost automatically. Working garter stitch in the round is a little different. Because knitting in the round follows a continuous spiral, the transition between a knit round and a purl round does not naturally line up. At the beginning of the round, this creates a visible jog. When repeated in the same place, these jogs can form an unwanted vertical seam through otherwise seamless knitting.
There are several ways to try and make the transition to a new round as jog-less as possible. In the previous tutorial in this mini-series, I showed you the lifted strand and p2tog method. In this tutorial, I’ll go into the “slip 1 with yarn in front” or “sl1 wyif” method. This method uses a slipped stitch with the yarn held in front to create a small horizontal strand of yarn at the beginning of the knit round. This strand helps disguise the abrupt change between the purl and knit sections of the fabric. The result is not completely invisible, but it is a straightforward and effective solution for many projects.
Let’s take a look at how it’s done!
Materials used
Yarn: Paintbox Yarns Simply DK, a good value, good quality 100% acrylic yarn, here in the color Vintage Pink.
Knitting needles: I knit the swatch with tiny circular needles, but transferred it to this is a pair of straights for some of the pictures. I picked these up at the second-hand store when I started knitting, brand unknown.
A note before we start
Before we begin, garter stitch in the round is worked as follows:
Round 1: Knit all stitches.
Round 2: Purl all stitches.
In the swatch you see below, I’ve first worked 10 rounds in garter stitch without doing anything to smooth the transition. After that I knit 10 rounds using the lifted strand and p2tog method. Do you see how they differ at the end/beginning of the round point indicated by the stitch marker?
Knitting jog-less garter stitch in the round: sl1 wyif method step by step
The modification on making the transition jog-less with the sl1 wyif method is only worked at the beginning of every knit round. However, it´s not worked on the very first knit round.
- I’ve knit a round, then purled across the entire next round until, and slipped the beginning-of-round marker to the right-hand needle.
Ready to start the steps to smooth the transition!
- Move the working yarn to the front of the work….
- …. then slip the first stitch purl-wise to the right-hand needle with the working yarn held to the front of the work.
- Next, move the working yarn to the back of the work again, and continue knitting your round.
- Work steps 2-4 for every 2 rounds that you work in garter stitch.
The result
The sl1 wyif method does not make the beginning of the round disappear completely. If you look closely, you may still be able to find the transition. It does, however, prevent the jog from appearing as a strong, sharply defined vertical seam. For a technique that requires only one slipped stitch per two rounds, that makes it a very useful option.
Below, you can see the swatch I worked. The bottom 5 ridges are showing how it looks when doing nothing to smooth the transition. The middle 5 ridges show the result of the lifted strand and p2tog method. The upper 5 ridges show the sl1 wyif method as detailed in this tutorial. Of these 3, I think I like the result with the lifted strand and p2tog method best!
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