Drawstrings and baby caps

A knitter wrote to me today asking about how to make a drawstring for a baby cap.
I believe that the best sort of drawstring is no string at all--drawstrings have the horrible potential to come loose and strangle the baby.

Illustration 1: If drawstrings absolutely must be used--as in a family heirloom christening cap for example--their danger can be lessened (but not eliminated!) by sewing the drawstring to the cap while leaving the extending ends to be used as ties, but keeping these ties as short as possible.


Illustration 2: If the cap will be too large for the baby's head unless the drawstring snugs the cap up, then sew the drawstring to the cap in the already snugged-up position.


Illustration 3: I believe that a safer modification for a drawstring cap is to thread the drawstring through the eyelets, sew it down, and then work the protruding ends into a frog and frog-closure.


At heart, a frog is nothing but a knot, and a frog-closure is simply the little loop which slips around this knot, acting as a loop-buttonhole would. I think that frogs are safer than buttons, as they cannot be pulled (or bitten!) loose by a teething baby. Frogs come undone from their closures easily, it is true, but this is actually an advantage: you WANT the frog to pop loose with very moderate pressure, for safety's sake.

Addendum 11-18-09: I forgot to say: the illustration shows a single knot. However, if that is coming out too small, consider making the protruding end a bit longer, then folding the end back on itself, and THEN tie the knot in the doubled-back end. Also, make the frog-closure loop smaller than you think: it'll stretch out through use.

--TK You have been reading TECHknitting on drawstrings and baby hats.

Two bits of knitting theory: the "work-to-glory" ratio and "product-plus-process"

Today's post is also available as an mp3 file: click here to hear TECHknitter on "Two bits of knitting theory--the podcast."

* * *

I’m working a project now which I simply love—love far more than an ordinary knitting project.


This scarf is a simple lace rectangle, worked in the very easy "sea foam pattern" and made from Kauni Effectgarn lace yarn. But it isn't really the pattern or the yarn which are the subjects of this post. This scarf is merely a springboard. Thinking about why this particular project should be so special has dredged up two bits of knitting theory, and (fair warning!) I mean to inflict them on you today.

Theory 1: The "work-to-glory ratio"

This bit of knitting theory comes from my friend Carol (Rududu on Ravelry, where she is a Bobby Award Winner and a member of the Hall of Fame).

A quick-to-knit item which turns out beautifully is the ideal subject for hand knitting, it has a good work-to-glory ratio. Conversely, a hard-to-knit item which does not ultimately inspire has a bad work-to-glory ratio. Naturally, there are also items which are hard to work but result in a great deal of glory. Knitters must decide for themselves where the balance between work and glory ought best to lie to give the maximum possible results, the biggest "bang" for your knitting labor.

The scarf which inspired today's post has the best work-to glory ratio of any project I have ever worked. The gorgeous yarn of which it is knit transforms the simple lace into a simply gorgeous fabric. Even if you're not as excited about this project as I am, it's an unmistakable illustration of the concept. This all-garter stitch lace can be made by any beginner, but the use of a beautifully-spun, long-repeat, well-dyed yarn substantially ups the glory quotient with no additional work on my part whatever.


Yarn: Kauni Effectgarn lace yarn
Lace Pattern: Sea Foam, with several rows of garter stitch below, and 4 extra garter stitches on each side edge, modified to add 1,2 and 3 stitches, rather than the more usual 2,3 and 4 stitches.

Theory 2: Product Plus Process

When non-knitters look at hand-knit goods, most tend to focus on the result, on the product. "Why spend 42 hours making a pair of socks? Wal-Mart sells 'em for a buck a pair" is their attitude, their tolerably obvious attitude. Confirmed sock knitters, however, find that mass-made socks cannot be compared to hand-made--the custom fit, the warmth, the exact colors of a hand made sock cannot be duplicated. This excellence is sometimes the very heart of a successful knitting project--the seamless toe, the beautiful work, the perfect fit, the non-binding sock on the achy foot. Knitting as product (and, as a very superior product which you simply couldn't buy anywhere!)

Often, however, hand-knitted objects add another dimension, a process dimension. See your kid standing near the door in hand-made socks, ready to pull on shoes and head out? Those socks are loving that child--the kid is wearing a hug on each foot, and the knitter and the kid both know it. This is process and product combined: knitted object as connection between people.

Further, the knitter also remembers where the sock was knit--sitting on the sofa at home, perhaps, or on a splendid vacation, or maybe at the sick-bed of a beloved relative. Each stitch captures the tick of the clock while the curtains stirred the breeze, the vista of mountains unscrolling through the train window, the love and concern for the person in the bed. Process and product combine again: the knitted object as connection to personal history.

The same half-started lace scarf which inspired today's reverie about the work-to-glory ratio also carries a great many strands of this sort of connection. The Kauni lace yarn from which this scarf is being knit was bought in Zurich Switzerland, a city which I had the great good fortune to visit on vacation. Eva Grimmer, the owner of the Vilfil yarn shop there, had this ball of yarn as a display on her counter. It was the last Kauni lace yarn in stock, and she very kindly agreed to sell this display ball to me.


From its appearance, I assumed that the ball was machine-wound and came from the factory like that,. However, after allowing me to buy her display, Eva let drop that she had wound it herself, by hand while watching TV. "It wasn't difficult" she said "because I studied mathematics at University." As I knit on this yarn, Zurich, Eva, her shop, her astonishing mathematical winding and her generosity in selling me the hand-wound ball are all present before me, many strands of connection.

Excellence of fit, that is product. Object as connection to person and to history, that is combination of product and process. The more I knit, though, the more I think that there's even yet another quality of hand-knitting, a pure process aspect perhaps not much discussed, and that is the ephemeral joy of the knitting itself.

All hand-knits carry the invisible story of their own knitting--not just where they were knit, but also how--the color and texture of the needles which slid through the yarn, what the stitch markers looked like, how the yarn first looked on the shelf, how the project looked when first cast on and when half-finished, how the skeins of yarn then looked half-collapsed in the knitting basket. The older I get, the more foreground are these ephemeral joys.

Beyond the good work-to-glory ratio, beyond my connection to Zurich, my half-started Kauni scarf offers a great deal of this sort of joy, too.

Watching the yarn unwind from the smooth, even layers Eva put there is is a pure process joy. In fact, watching those smooth layers come undone with each tug on the running yarn is as much of a joy as the actual knitting itself. More joy comes because the yarn is dyed in long repeats. As I knit, the color of the ball keeps changing--first it was a green ball of yarn with colored innards, but now it is an orange ball. When the scarf is finished, its secret mother--the changing color yarn ball--will have been used up, but the pleasure of the changing color ball will stay with me until the scarf itself is lost and fades from memory.

This sort of ephemeral joy is sometimes so strong, it may result in unfinished garments. I think many knitters have a half-finished project somewhere--a project never to be disposed yet never to be finished. Sometimes, the pure process pleasure of the project underway outweighs any pleasure the finished product could bring. For many years I had a project like this too, a mohair hat. As a finished product, it would have been another hat, one of many, but as a project, the sharp golden lace needles against the green mohair with the hot-pink stitch markers was an experience in itself. In pure process knits, the knitter takes the project out every few months just to add a few stitches and savor, or even just to pat the yarn.

--TK YYou have been reading TECHknitting on two bits of knitting theory: the "work-to-glory ratio" and "product-plus-process."

Short rows: method

Today TECHknitting shows short row how-to: basic, wrap-and-turn, Japanese and so on.

VARIATION 1: Basic short rows
(category: no-wrap, no-lift)

As stated in the last post (theory of short rows) short rows are made by sneaking little short rows into the middle of the work--rows which don't go from edge to edge. Illustration 1a is a schematic of these in their most basic form.

• Rows 1 and 2 (black) ordinary rows, each goes from edge to edge
• Row 3 (yellow) ordinary row, goes from edge to edge, colored yellow for reference
• Row 4 (dark blue) partial short row--starts on the right edge like an ordinary row, but is stopped short of the left edge when the work is turned at the bright blue turn-point (also called a "turn-loop"). This is a partial short row because it touches one edge (right edge) but not the other.
• Row "Sh" (red) a fully short row--starts at the bright blue turn-point, is worked towards the right edge but is stopped short when the work is again turned at the pink turn-point. This is a fully short row--it reaches neither the right edge nor the left edge.
• Row 5 (green) partial short row--starts at the pink turn-point and is worked all the way through to the left edge. It is a partial row because it touches only one edge (left edge) but not the other. As it travels past the left edge of the red row (dotted green line) it must be worked into the underlying yellow row (dotted yellow line)
• Row 6 (purple) ordinary row, goes from edge to edge. Where it travels past the left edge of the red row (dotted purple line) it must be worked into the underlying partial dark blue row (dark blue dotted line)
• Row 7 (black) ordinary row, goes from edge to edge.

Illustration 1b shows this same schematic, a bit simplified, translated into actual knit stitches.

Of the greatest interest to us are the turn-loops--the bright blue and pink bits at either edge of the fully short red row. As you can see, when you simply work to the turn-points of a short row, then turn and work back, the turn loops at the short row edges aren't connected to the stitches alongside. In other words, the red row is only connected at the top (to the green row) and the bottom (to the dark blue row) BUT ISN'T CONNECTED AT THE LEFT (the bright-blue turn-loop does not touch the yellow stitch alongside) NOR AT THE RIGHT (the pink turn-loop does not touch the dark-blue stitch alongside). Instead, the fabric has two HOLES at these turn-points.

A very great deal of human ingenuity has been devoted to closing these holes, and different techniques have arisen. The most common techniques involve extending the turn-loops so that they are "wrapped" around the stitches alongside them. As explained in greater detail below, the wraps can either be left in place or be further operated upon by being "lifted" (also called "being unwrapped"). In fact, many different short row techniques can be categorized by the exact combination of "wraps" and "lifts" employed. As you can see, at their turn-points, the most basic short rows shown in illustration 1b have had their turn-loops neither "wrapped" nor "lifted," and so these basic, rather primitive short rows we've just been looking at are categorized as "no-wrap, no-lift."

VARIATION 2--"Wrap and turn" basic short rows
(category: wrap, no-lift)

These are the first, simplest variation on short rows. Here's the how-to in a stockinette fabric, supposing you are working from the smooth (knit) side.

Illustration 2a Knit to the spot where you wish to turn. This means to knit into the very last stitch of your short row. In the illustration, five dark blue stitches have been knit and the fifth stitch is the last stitch knitted before step 2b.


Illustration 2b: Slip the next stitch on the tip of the left needle (yellow) to the right needle and bring the running yarn (bright blue in this illustration) AROUND the slipped stitch. In other words, bring the yarn from the back to the front (towards you) between the yellow stitch and its neighbor to the left.

Illustration 2c: Replace the slipped stitch onto the left needle. Steps 2b and c together are the "wrap" part of this maneuver--you have wrapped the bright blue turn-loop around the neck of its neighbor to the left--the yellow stitch.


Illustration 2d: Turn the work. "Turning" means

• turn the work back-to-front so you are now looking at the purl side of the fabric,
• the darker-colored needle formerly in your right hand is now in your left hand while the lighter-colored needle formerly in your left hand is now in your right hand, and that
• in the ordinary direction of work, you will now be purling back towards the same edge you set out from in illustration 2a.
  

In addition to turning the work, you must also switch the running yarn (red in this illustration) forward into position for purling.

Illustration 2e: The running yarn has been brought forward (towards you) and one purl stitch has been created. Now that the work has been turned and one purl stitch worked, you can better see how the bright blue turn-loop is wrapped around the neck of the yellow stitch.


When all the stitches required by the pattern to be purled have been worked, the short row is ended. In this illustration, a 4-stitch short row (red) has been worked. On the next stitch to the left (dark blue) repeat the wrap steps (same as steps 2b and c) but this time, working from the purl side.

Illustration 2f shows the final result after the blue stitch has been slipped, wrapped with the running yarn (pink in this illustration) and replaced on the left needle.


Illustration 2g: Turn the work again, and knit the bright green row. Now you can better see that the pink turn-loop is wrapped around the neck of the dark blue stitch alongside.


(Just a little preview of what is to come: the very next variation on short rows in this post is exactly the same as this one right through the end of this step, 2-g.)

Illustration 2h: In this simplified variation of wrap-and-turn, the knitting simply continues. As you can see, this means that the bright blue turn-loop remains in where it now is, wrapped around the neck of the yellow stitch, and the knitting simply goes on without any fuss or fanfare on through to the end of the row.


On the next row, simply purl all the way back. As with step 2h, the turn-loop (pink in this case) simply remains in place, wrapped around the neck of the dark blue stitch as the work goes on in the usual way. Illustration 2i shows the finished fabric.


If you compare illustration 2i to illustration 1b, you'll see that they're the same with one exception: in illustration 1b, the bright blue and the pink turn-loops are not connected to the stitches alongside of them, while in illustration 2i, they are.

This variation of short rows is created by "wrapping" the turn-loops around the necks of the stitches alongside. Once the wraps are created, they remain in the fabric--per illustration 2h, you simply knit or purl into the top of the stitch with the wrap around its neck. Because the wrap is left undisturbed and never "unwrapped" or "lifted" off the necks of the underlying stitches, these sorts of short rows are categorized as "wrap-no-lift" or "wrap-unlifted."

For many kinds of knitting, wrap-no-lift short rows are just fine--for one example, many knitters use these for sock heels where the stacked diagonal line of the unlifted wraps make a pleasant pattern. For another example, when working in garter stitch or reverse stockinette, these wrap-no-lift short rows are actually are the best kind to use. The wrap creates a sturdy attachment, while the little bump created by the wrap remains hidden because the turn-loops are indistinguishable in the midst of the naturally bumpy fabric.

However, as you can see in illustration 2i, in a stockinette fabric, these unlifted wraps (bright blue and pink) show on the surface of the fabric. So, of course, some clever knitter of long ago said to herself "I bet I could get rid of those little bumps there," and she did, by inventing...

VARIATION 3: Wrap and Turn and Unwrap short rows
(category: wrap-and-lift)

The point of "lifting" the wraps (also called "unwrapping") is to hide them so they don't show on the smooth face of a stockinette fabric. This is done by lifting the wraps off the necks of the underlying stitches. Once lifted, the turn-loop becomes a loose loop sticking out of the side of the fabric, and this loose loop can be hidden by knitting (k2tog) or purling (ssp) it together with its neighboring stitch (that being the stitch around whose neck it was formerly wrapped). The k2tog or ssp preserves the attachment between the short rows ends and the fabric, while getting rid of the bump.

As stated earlier, unlifted and lifted wraps are identical up through illustration 2g, above. Illustration 2g shows the bright-blue wrapped yellow stitch about to be knit. In making lifted wraps, we stop there and don't go on to step 2h. Instead we "lift" the blue wrap off the yellow stitch. Specifically, the right needle is inserted under the bright blue turn-loop and used to pry ("lift") it up off of the yellow stitch. The result will be as shown in illustration 3a, below: the bright blue turn-loop now protrudes from the side of the short rows.


Normally, of course, we wouldn't abandon the bright-blue turn-loop just waving around in the air like that. Illustration 3a is just for ... well... just for illustration purposes! Really, what we do is lift the wrap off and deposit it straight away onto the left needle, where it should come to rest with its right arm forward (untwisted) as shown in illustration 3b, below.


As further shown by the purple arrow, the lifted loop (bright blue) and its left-hand neighbor (the yellow stitch it used to be wrapped around) are now to be knitted together.

Illustration 3c shows the actual knitting together--this is an ordinary k2tog (scroll link for description).


After the bright blue turn-loop has been k2tog'ed with the yellow stitch, the work proceeds to the end of the row, and then the work is turned. Per illustration 3c, in our illustration fabric that would mean that after the k2tog, only 1 more stitch remains to be knit before the work is turned to the purl side.

On the reverse fabric face, purl back to the (dark blue) wrapped stitch. Now comes an awkward series of maneuvers to disengage the pink wrap from the blue stitch. You will find that you aren't really lifting the pink wrap off the blue stitch, but rather are slipping the wrapped stitch off of both needles and, while this assembly hangs in the air, using both needle tips to wiggle the blue stitch out of the pink wrap's embrace.

Once the blue stitch and the pink wrap are disengaged, they are placed onto the left needle in the order shown shown by illustration 3d, below. Specifically, the blue stitch goes on first, and it's very important that it be placed LEFT ARM FORWARD. The pink wrap goes onto the left needle next, and it is also placed LEFT ARM FORWARD. (FYI: laying these two stitches left arm forward is the same re-orientation maneuver as the first step of slip-slip-purl--ssp--a left-leaning decrease made from the purl side--more on this just below.)


Following the purple arrow, you will now purl the stitches together, working through the BLUE stitch first. The reason to purl them together in this position is to force the blue stitch to the fabric surface in an untwisted manner, while forcing the pink turn-loop behind, where it cannot be seen.

Are you having trouble purling these together from this position? It is admittedly awkward, so if you need further help, please click on this link, and scroll to the part about "Left-leaning purl decreases" also called "slip-slip-knit" (ssp). This identical situation of purling two stitches together from the left-arm-forward, second-stitch-first position is covered in great detail at the link.

After ssp'ing together the blue stitch with the pink wrap, work to the end of the row, and turn again. The fabric is now worked further in the usual manner. As shown in illustration 3e, unwrapping the turn-loops by lifting them off the necks of their neighbors, then k2tog'ing/ssp'ing them together with these neighbors makes a beautiful fabric.

In illustration 3e, all the distracting coloring has been removed, leaving only the pink and the blue wrap still colored. As shown, it is nearly impossible to determine where the short rows are located, and the wraps are well hidden.

VARIATION 4. Digging or Pinning
(category: lift, no-wrap)

The trick of this variation is to avoid wrapping but retain the lifting. The rationale is twofold: avoiding the extra yarn inserted at the "wrap" stage, as well as avoiding the extra manhandling of stitches which accompanies the wrapping and lifting (unwrapping). Nevertheless, the short rows must be attached, and the end result of lifting--where the turn-loop is k2tog'ed or ssp'ed together with its left-hand neighbor--looks very well indeed. So how about the best of both worlds--not wrapping but still lifting? There are two ways to lift without wrapping.

DIGGING:

If you go back to illustration 1b, you'll notice that the unwrapped turn-loops, both bright-blue and pink, are laying between the edges of the short rows and the stitches alongside. It would be possible to simply dig these turn-loops out of the fabric, lift them onto the left needle and either knit (bright blue) or purl (pink) these stitches together with their neighbors. Once lifted out of the fabric, these turn-loops would be treated just as are the turn-loops in illustrations 3b and 3d.

PINNING:

Digging the turn-loops out of the fabric can be challenging because they're hard to see. Here's a trick to make it easier using a pin--either a coil-less safety pin or a bobby-pin.

As shown in illustration 4a, as each turn-point (bright blue and pink) is reached, then instead of wrapping the turn-loops around the neighboring stitch as in variations 2 and 3 of this post, the turn loop is instead caught on a pin. If using a safety pin as shown, simply fasten it shut around--not through--the turn loop before turning the work and knitting or purling back. If using a bobby pin, simply slide it onto the turn loop and leave it there, hanging--same idea as a J-shaped cable needle, only smaller.


As shown in illustration 4b, when the time comes to lift the turn-loop onto the left needle, the turn-loop can be grabbed very readily by simply grasping the pin and pulling the loop onto the left needle that way.

After the turn-loop is safely on the left needle and oriented whichever arm forward is required, the pin is removed and the work goes forward as shown in illustrations 3b (knit side) and 3d (purl side). The turn-loops, not having been wrapped or otherwise manhandled, are shorter and tidier.

VARIATION 5: Japanese Short Rows
(category: slip, lift, no-wrap)

Japanese short rows combine the no-wrap/pin variation of part 4 with one more trick: slipping stitches. Slipping a stitch means there is even less yarn to stretch out, making Japanese short rows the tightest and tidiest (as seen from the knit side) of any short rows. Shown below is how the work would proceed if you were starting on the smooth (knit) side of a stockinette fabric.

On the knit side, knit all the stitches right up to the turning point. Attach a pin (safety pin or bobby pin, makes absolutely no difference) around the running yarn, in the same manner as in illustration 4a. Turn the work. Now on the purl side, SLIP the first stitch from the left needle to the right needle without working it.

Illustration 5a shows the purl side of the fabric. The pin has been set, the first stitch (red with blue dots) slipped and the next stitch (red) purled.


A quick note about color and orientation: in illustration 5a, the slipped stitch is colored red with blue dots. The red is to indicate that this slipped stitch is now part of the fully-short (red) row, the blue dots are to indicate that this stitch started off life as a stitch from the partial row BELOW the red row--the dark-blue row. By slipping, this stitch has been stretched up into a bridge position: it is now a member of the dark-blue row AND of the red row. Note that this dotted stitch has been slipped "purlwise" which means it was slipped open (untwisted) and right arm forward, as shown.

Purl until you reach the purl turn-point. Again set a pin around the running yarn, turn the work and and again slip the first stitch from the left needle to the right needle purlwise. Next, knit to the end of the short row, finishing by knitting into the top of the stitch you first slipped. Illustration 5b shows the end result: the purl side pin has been set and all the knit stitches of the red fully-short row worked back, ending with a knit into the top of the slipped stitch.


Another quick note about color and orientation: the stitch slipped in the purl turn has been colored red with green dots. The red is to indicate that the stitch started life as a member of the red fully-short row, while the green dots are to indicate that, by slipping, this stitch has been stretched up into a bridge position between the red and green rows.: the stitch is now a member of the red row AND the green row. Again, this dotted stitch has been slipped purlwise.

Doesn't Illustration 5b look familiar? In fact, except for the fancy dotted slipped stitches, the situation is exactly the same as the classic wrap-and-turns showed in variations 3 and, especially, 4. If you tug the blue turn loop onto your left needle with the attached pin and then remove the pin, you'll have the same set-up as in illustration 3b, and you continue the same as shown there. In other words, the turn-loop on the pin is pulled up onto the left needle right arm first, the pin is removed, then a k2tog is performed to work the turn-loop together with its left-hand neighbor. The fabric is then worked to the end of the row and turned onto the purl side.

In the next row, when you have worked through to the purl turning point, you purl the stitch previously slipped. Next, using the right needle, you re-orient the next stitch on the left needle so it lays left arm forward, then, grasping the pin, pull the turning loop onto the left needle, also left arm forward. You will now have two loops on your left needle which should be laying the same as illustration 3d. These two loops are now purled together from this position, as per the instructions accompanying illustration 3d.

Illustration 5c shows the finished product from the back. You will note that the turn-loops have been pulled into "bars" across the back of the fabric. This is because they had to be pulled across the back of the dotted slipped stitches in order to be k2tog'ed or ssp'ed.


Illustration 5d shows the Japanese short rows from the front. The turn loops are colored but the rest of the fabric is not. If you compare this illustration to illustration 3e, you'll see that the fabrics are pretty nearly the same, but the Japanese short rows have fewer stitches. Having fewer stitches would translate to a tighter, tidier fabric, at least from the knit side.

SUMMARY

Variation 1 are the the most basic kind of short row a basic short row, unwrapped and unlifted--a no-wrap-no-lift short row.The problem, of course, is that not wrapping and not lifting leaves end stitches of the short row unattached to the fabric stitches alongside of them, resulting in holes at the turning point.

Variation 2 are the basic wrapped short rows, where the wrap is simply left in the fabric, a wrap-no-lift short row. By wrapping the running yarn around the neck of the fabric stitch alongside before turning the work, the short row ends are connected to the fabric, eliminating the holes. When the wrapped stitches are again encountered, the wraps are left in place unlifted--the stitches with the wraps around their little necks are simply knitted or purled as if nothing was different about them. This works well on a bumpy fabric, such as garter stitch or reverse stockinette stitch, but on a smooth stockinette fabric, the wraps show as bumps.

Variation 3 are wrap-and-turn short rows with the refinement of unwrapping the wraps when you encounter them again. These wrap-and-lift short rows smooth the stockinette front face of the fabric by lifted the bumpy wraps and hiding them on the fabric back via a k2tog (knit side) or ssp (purl side).

Variation 4, digging or pinning the turn-loops results in lift, no-wrap short rows and digging/pinning is a further refinement to part 3. Instead of adding extra yarn to the turn-loops by wrapping them around the necks of their neighbors, the turn-loops are kept tight and afterwards either dug out of the fabric or pulled up by means of their attached safety or bobby pins. Not-wrapping not only keeps excess yarn out the fabric, but it also means the stitches are manhandled less--less flicking about of stitches and running yarn. The structure of the resulting fabric looks exactly like the finished fabric of part 3 (shown in illustration 3e) just tighter and tidier.

Variation 5, Japanese (slip, lift, no-wrap) short rows, represent the ultimate refinement. Not only is the turn-loop kept tight by wrapping it around a saftey pin instead the neck of its neighboring fabric stitch, but the first stitch after the turning-point is kept tight also, by slipping it (same idea as a slipped-stitch selvedge). When the turn-loop is reached, it must be pulled by the pin out of the fabric and worked together with its left hand neighbor, and this pulling tightens the fabric even further.

Which method to use?

The wrapped-and-lifted method (variation 3) is probably the default. It has ease of execution on its side (no digging, no pins to be set and unset) and it looks reasonably well on the smooth knit side of a stockinette fabric. However, in a very bulky yarn, or a very slippery yarn, keeping the short row ends as tight as possible is a worthy goal, and for this purpose, the lift-no-wrap short rows (variation 4) probably have the advantage. However, you must balance this advantage against the cost--either the turn-loops have to be dug out, or pins have to be set and then unset, either of which is quite a bit slower than wrapping/unwrapping.

Japanese short rows (variation 5) are the ultimate in tight, good-looking wraps on the knit face but have a disadvantage on the purl side of a bar along the fabric back. I personally don't use Japanese short rows for this reason, but take this with a grain of salt. I'm lazy, and don't use the dig or pin variation either (variation 4) despite thinking that this looks better than ordinary wrap-and-turn (variation 3). Notwithstanding my laziness and aversion to the bar, however, I suspect that in a couture knit--perhaps in a silk ribbon for an ultimately-to-be-lined business suit, the ultra-refined Japanese short row would be the best of all.

Bottom line: as in all things knitting, different techniques have different strengths and weaknesses, and different knitters have different (and frequently strong) opinions. You must select for yourself from the smorgasbord of short rows, of which 5 different kinds are here presented.

POST-SUMMARY GEEK NOTES

Further variations exist also:

• Yarn over short rows: instead of wrapping/unwrapping, a turn-loop can be made into a yarn over (yo) and this yo is then worked together with the neighboring left hand stitch from the fabric proper when the fabric has been worked to the yo location. This works especially well as an alternative to the dig variation -- variation 4. A yo can also be substituted for the pin in Japanese short rows, with the yo made after the slipped stitch.
  
• M1 short rows: the turn loop can be ignored, ie: the work can be left as in illustration 1b, with the edges of the short rows--the turn-loops--left unattached. Then, the last stitch of the short row can be k2tog'ed or ssp'ed together with the neighboring stitch out of the fabric. Lastly, the stitch count is brought back to the original number by lifting a new stitch, m1 fashion, out of the tail of the stitch just to the left of the new k2tog or ssp.
  

I have no doubt that yet further variations exist, and confidently anticipate hearing of them in the comments, because, let's face it--knitting ingenuity is boundless!

(Whew. Most illustrations in a TECHknitting post yet...)

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on short row methods--basic short rows, wrap and turn short rows, Japanese short rows.

Short rows: theory

include 11 illustrations--click any illustration to enlarge
TECHknitting blog now turns to a series on short rows. Today's post shows the theory. Click here for the how-to (basic short rows, Japanese short rows, wrap and turn, plus other variations).

THEORY

Short rows come in two main types: Short rows worked to create shaping in the MIDDLE of an otherwise ordinary fabric (fabrics knit back-and-forth as well as knit circular) and fabric MADE of short rows.

Variations on these two main themes abound also, such as short rows made along a fabric edge and hybrids of the two main types: fabric knit of short rows which has further short rows inserted. In fact, there are newer and more imaginative combinations of short row technique all the time--garments made in wedges and starbursts, beautiful modular fabrics made of bits knitted together in truly innovative ways, even mind-bending mathematical models can be knit with short rows. However, the basis of short row technique lays in these two main types. Once these are understood, all else follows.

Short rows in the middle of a piece of fabric

The idea of this trick is to add rows to your knitting which don't go all the way from side to side: little short rows, snuck into the middle of the work.

Illustration 1 shows ordinary knitted fabric where each row is worked all the way to the edge. The very last row of this ordinary fabric has been colored yellow, just for reference. The fabric in this schematic has been knit flat, as shown by the direction of the arrows.

Illustration 2: The blue row is not knit all the way to the end. Instead, at the red dot, the work is turned and the red row is worked. ("Turned"=right needle becomes left needle, left needle becomes right needle. You are now looking at the other face of your fabric, and you go off knitting--or purling--in the direction opposite to the way you were working before you "turned.") As shown, the red row does not go all the way to the end either. Instead, the red row is short, too--it stops at the purple dot.

Illustration 3. After the red row has been worked to the purple dot, the work is again turned. This time, the next row (green) IS worked all the way to the end. However, as you can see, something interesting is going to happen. The last bit of the green row (indicated with a dashed line) isn't going to contact the red row at all, it's going to have to be knit into the yellow row--specifically, that part of the yellow row indicated by a dashed line.

As is evident, adding short rows is going to distort the fabric. This distortion comes in two types: bulging and differential lengthening.Used alone or in combination, these two short-row effects create shaping.

BULGING

Inserting short rows makes fabric bulge outwards where the short rows are. As per illustration 4, when the last bit (dashed line) of the green row is knitted into the bit of the yellow row below it (dashed line), this distorts the right side of the fabric: it pulls the green row down and the the yellow row up while also forcing the blue, red and green rows to bulge outwards.

The same along the left side: the purple row is the first regular (long) row above the blue, red and green short rows. The last bit (dashed line) of the purple row must be knit into the underlying bit of the blue row (dashed line). This snugs up the left side to match the right, while bowing the short rows outwards from the left, also.


The schematic above shows only three short rows inserted--the blue partial short row (short on the right) the red fully short row (short on both sides) and the green partial short row (short on the left). A single full short row causes a mild outward bulge.

Illustration 5: A much more definite bulge can be obtained by further stacking short rows together. This is the basis for short row heels, for example. The heel shown below is a variation on a short row heel. The work begins and ends at the colored dots. As you see, ever-decreasing short rows are followed by ever-increasing short rows, and this self-contained unit of stacked short rows deforms the fabric into a bulge suitable for a heel.

DIFFERENTIAL LENGTHENING

Bulging is not the only trick we can do with short rows. Differential lengthening is also possible. Differential lengthening is when a fabric is worked to be longer in the middle, without affecting the length of the fabric at the edges. An example is improving the fit of a sweater back by adding ease via short rows in the middle of the fabric.

Specifically, adding a bit more length up the middle of a sweater back helps prevent the back from riding up. Illustration 6 shows a sweater back lengthened in this way. The short rows do not go all the way to the edge so the edges aren't any longer--a good thing at seam sewing time. Because the back is longer only where the short rows are (gray arrow) the back is said to be "differentially longer" or "differentially lengthened."

Bulging and differential lengthening differ only in degree. Both are made using short rows. Which result you get depends on how many short rows you stack in proportion to the surrounding fabric. The more short rows packed in, the greater the bulge. Conversely, fewer, longer rows yield a gentle undetectable differential lengthening. Hybrids exist also: short row bust shaping, for example, creates both bulge and differential lengthening.

THE THEORY OF SHORT ROWS
WORKED IN THE ROUND (CIRCULAR KNITTING)

Before turning away from shaping, Illustration 7 shows short rows in circular knitting.


Circular knitting is composed not of discrete circles, but rather of an endless stack of spiral rounds. Rounds 1, 2, 3, and 4 (black) are ordinary knitted rounds in such a stack. Round 5 is also an ordinary knitted round--the last one before the short rows. It has been colored yellow for reference. On Round 6, the knitting stops at the red dot. The work is then turned and worked back to the purple dot. This makes the red short row, labeled "S." At the purple dot, the work is again turned, and this time an entire round is knit--round 7, shown in green.

As shown, when round 7 has been worked past the last stitch of the red short row, it must be worked into the underlying round. Because round 6 is a short round, this means round 7 is worked into round 5, the yellow round. After round 7, the short row sequence ends. Round 8 (purple) is a full round. Because round 7 was a short round, this means that as round 8 approaches the area of the short row, it is worked into round 6, the blue round. As round 8 climbs over the area of the short row, it goes from being worked into round 6 (blue) to being worked into round 7 (green). Rounds 9 and 10 (black) are again ordinary full rounds.

Inserting the partial short round 6 (blue), the full short row "S" (red) and the partial short round 7 (green) distort the fabric just as it did in a fabric knit back-and-forth (illustration 4). To the right of the short rows (where round 8 meets round 6) and to the left of the short rows (where round 7 meets round 5) the fabric is pinched together. The short round/rows themselves (6, "S," and 7) are forced to bulge outward. Even the ordinary black (full) rounds some distance from the short rows are distorted.

Like short rows in flat knitting, whether short rows yield bulge or differential lengthening (or both!) depends on how you stack and pack the short rows into your circular-knit fabric.

Fabric made of short rows

Shaping portions of an otherwise normally-knit fabric (whether worked back-and-forth or circular) is not the only use knitters have for short rows. It is actually possible to create an entire fabric exclusively of short rows. Here is an example of a seven-sided shape made this way: a baby blanket, perhaps, or a hat.

Illustration 1. The first row is teal, the second row, pink. The pink row is shorter than the teal -- it is a short row.

Illustration 2. If we continue along making each row shorter than the last, a triangle results. The "bottom" of the triangle is the first row cast on, called the "base." The remaining sides are made of the edges of the short rows: we'll call one the "inside edge" and the other the "outside edge."

Illustration 3: The outside edge, represented by the gray line, will become one of the seven outside edges of the final item. On the inside edge, represented by the brown line, we'll pick up a row of stitches. This new line of picked up stitches will be the baseline for a new triangle.

Keeping to this pattern yields an interconnected series of triangles. In this case, 7 total wedges have been worked, with the last sewn inside edge to the base of the original cast on (the original teal row cast on back in illustration 1).

A wedge-knit short row flat shape like a baby blanket, for example, might require quite a few short rows to make each wedge, and each row might be only slightly shorter than the one before. To get a 3-d wedge-knit short row item like a hat would requite fewer total rows, with each short row possibly considerably shorter than the one before. Also, the short rows might not be symmetrical: a hat made of short-row wedges typically has only a very few rows which go all the way through to the center, while the edge of the hat has a great many rows. In other words, just like in shaping using short rows in the middle of a fabric, so here too: how you stack and pack the short rows will determine whether a short-row knit fabric lays flat (baby blanket) or bulges (hat).

If you're ready for the how-to, click here to be taken to the follow-up post. 

--TK

You've been reading TECHknitting on: "Short rows: the theory"

Purl decreases: p2tog, p2tbl, ssp

The same way there are two versions of knit decreases, there are also two versions of purl decreases: the right-leaning and the left-leaning.



*A purled decrease which slants RIGHT as seen from the front side of a stockinette fabric is not usually called a "right leaning purled decrease." Instead, the decrease is named by its method of creation. In other words, these right leaning decreases are usually called "purl 2 together" (usually abbreviated "p2tog") because that's what you do to get them.

*A purled decrease which slants LEFT as seen from the front is called various things, but hardly ever simply "left leaning purled decreases." Instead, like the right-leaners, these left-leaners are also usually named for their method of making. So, just to confuse the heck out of you, these left-leaners are sometimes also called "p2tog," just like the right leaning ones. Other, more common names include "slip, slip, purl" ("ssp") or "purl 2 together through the back loops" (usually abbreviated "p2tbl" but sometimes "p2togtbl.")

RIGHT LEANING (as seen from the front)

This is a simple one step process: Instead of sticking your right needle into the first (green) stitch at the tip of the left needle and purling it, you instead stick your right needle into the first two stitches (green and blue) and purl them together, as shown below.


The result, as seen from the front, is shown below.


Do you see what you've done? By first inserting your right needle into the first stitch on the tip of the left needle (the green stitch) and next into the second stitch on the left needle (the blue) you have forced the green stitch in front of the blue stitch, as seen from the front (knit side) of the fabric. The green stitch has "eaten" the blue stitch to its right thus pulling the green stitch rightwards ---> over the blue stitch, and this is what forces the decrease to slant right. The slant is not purely rightwards, however, but "up and to the right" because the base of the stitches remains separated--it is only the heads which you've merged. As stated earlier, these right leaning decreases are usually called "p2tog."

LEFT LEANING (as seen from the front)

This is a three step process

Step 1: Slip the first (green) stitch on the tip of the left needle onto the right needle KNITWISE. This means to insert the needle into the stitch as if you were going to knit it. When the right needle is inserted this way and then the stitch slipped off, the stitch turns away from its usual right-arm-forward orientation. Now, the left arm of the stitch is forward (towards you) and the right arm is back (away from you.) Note that you do not pass a yarn through this loop, you just slip it from the left needle onto the right one, changing its orientation along the way.

Repeat this process with the next (blue) stitch on the tip of the left needle. You will wind up with both the blue and the green stitches on your right needle, and both should be laying left arm forward as shown by the red arrows.


Step 2: Return the blue and green stitches to the left needle without disturbing their orientation. The end result of all this slipping and sliding should be the blue and the green stitch laying on the tip of the left needle, oriented left arms forward, right arms back.


Once these stitches are parked on the left needle, you will insert the tip of the right needle into the right (back) arms of both of these stitches as shown by the red arrow. Note that the right needle is to insert from the back, first under the right arm of the BLUE stitch, and then under the right arm of the green stitch. This is admittedly a bit awkward, but persevere.

Step 3: Again: once your right needle has followed the path of the red arrow, it will have been inserted first through the right (back) arm of the second stitch on the left needle (the blue stitch) and next through the right (back) arm of the first stitch on the left needle (the green stitch) as shown. Note also that the running yarn has been brought to the front before the right needle is inserted, in order to make it possible to purl.


Once you draw the running yarn through these two loops, the result, as seen from the front, is as below.


The loop through which the needle was first inserted, here the blue one, has been forced to the front. This blue stitch has "eaten" the green one to its left, which pulls the blue stitch <---- leftwards over the green stitch, so the decrease slants to the left. The slant is not purely leftwards, but rather "up and to the left" because with this decrease, as with the previous one, the base of the two stitches remain separated, it's only the heads which you've merged.

As stated earlier, this left leaning decrease is sometimes called "p2tog" just like the right leaning decrease is. However, it is more commonly called "slip, slip, purl" (ssp) or sometimes "purl 2 together through the back loops," (p2togtbl or p2tbl).

The BOTTOM LINE and a RULE TO FOLLOW

You can straighten out any confusion about the messy naming situation of purled decreases by simply ignoring the names given in your pattern. Instead, look to see which way the decrease OUGHT to lean for best looks, and do that. Remember the rule:

*if you first insert your right needle through the FIRST (green) stitch on the left needle tip and then through the second (blue) stitch, the green will be pulled rightwards ----> over its neighbor and the resulting decrease will slant right as seen from the front of a stockinette fabric

*after the re-orientation steps (in other words, when you get to step 3) then if you first insert your right needle through the SECOND (blue) stitch on the left needle tip and then through the first (green) stitch, the blue will be pulled <---- leftwards over its neighbor and the resulting decrease will slant left as seen from the front of a stockinette fabric.


Two last notes:

1. Some instructions for a left leaning purled decrease ignore the re-orientation steps (steps 1 and 2) and instead jump directly to purling through the back loops (step 3). The result is a twisted loop on the front surface of the fabric--not so pretty.

2. If your decreases are to be viewed from the purled side of a stockinette fabric (reverse stockinette side) then it really makes absolutely no difference how you make them, so make the one-step right leaning decreases because they are easier and quicker. The reason it makes no difference is because in the purled and bumpy landscape of a reverse stockinette fabric, the orientation of the loops will simply not show. As long as you're making the purled decreases where you ought to be (on the side of the marker as specified by your pattern) you'll get the result envisioned by the designer. It's only when viewed from the persnickety and smooth front (knit) side of a stockinette fabric that the direction of lean is important.

--TK

Addendum, added 10-13-09. In the comments, Rachmouse asks for a photo of these purl decreases from the purl side. Here you go Rachmouse!

But...just one thing, first. Also in the comments, Cheryl S. discusses the danger of confusion inherent in naming the slants based on how they look from the front. Cheryl is 100% correct, and if I could think of a better way to name these, I totally would. The photo that Rachmouse asked for perfectly illustrates Cheryl's point: As you can see the decrease which WILL be LEFT facing from the front is part of a line of RIGHT SLANTING decreases from the back. Similarly, the decrease which WILL be RIGHT facing from the front is part of a line of LEFT SLANTING decreases from the back. So, be warned -- look at the front frequently to be sure that your purled decreases slant the way you want them to, and don't put too much stock in what these purled decreases are called. And now, here's the photo Rachmouse requested:


You have been reading TECHknitting blog on "Purled decreases: p2tog, SSP, p2tbl, p2togtbl"

Lining mittens, part 2: thumb on the front

This post is about lining front-thumbed mittens, and is part 2 of a series: the first post of this series was about lining mittens which have side thumbs.

As with the side-thumbed mittens, we are using Polar Fleece for lining. In the illustrations below, the "good" (fluffier) side of the polar fleece is illustrated in blue, and the "not-so-good" side is illustrated in green. 

Step 1: Lay out the mitten on a piece of Polar Fleece, and trace the back of the mitten. This is pattern piece "C."


Step 2: Flip the mitten over with the thumb pointing up towards the top of the mitten. Trace along the bottom (cuff) line, then up both sides to the level at which the thumb starts. Next, draw a straight line from the side of the mitten to the base of the thumb, then trace the thumb itself. This gives pattern piece "B." 


The last pattern piece to cut is "A." With the thumb now facing down towards the cuff of the mitten, and the front of the mitten against the lining material, trace the top of the mitten and down both sides to the level of the thumb. Draw a straight line across to where the thumb starts, then trace the the thumb itself. 

The end result is as shown: your lining material with the three pattern pieces "A," the top part of the mitten front with a tracing of the thumb, "B," the bottom part of the mitten front with a tracing of the thumb, and "C," the back of the mitten.

Step 3: Holding the "good sides" of A and B together, sew as shown. When you unfold the two after sewing them together, you'll find that you've made a pretty good front-thumb. As to the sewing: if you have a sewing machine, this will take only a few short moments and you don't even have to find a matching thread and bobbin, because no one is ever, ever, going to see this seam. If you're sewing by hand, a good stitch to use would be the back stitch.


Step 4: Now, sew the back piece, C, onto the front piece made up of A+B. After this bit of sewing, you will have a finished mitten lining.


Step 5: slip the lining form into the mitten as shown, with the seamed side out. This way, the seam will be trapped between the lining and the inside of the mitten, never to be seen (or felt) again.


Step 6: finish the process by turning the whole works inside out, so the "good side" of the lining is showing, and the mitten is actually inside out, completely inside of the lining. Sew the lining to the mitten using the overcast stitch.


Some final notes:

1) There is no seam allowance left for three reasons: First, you WANT the lining to be smaller than the mitten. Second, fleece can be sewn awfully near the very edge: because it can't unravel, you need not have very much seam allowance at all: 1/8 inch is enough, and 1/4 inch is a lot. Third, fleece stretches, so you don't have to be nearly as precise with fleece as with woven cloth.

2) The cuff is not usually lined in mittens: this would make the wrist stiff.

3) Mittens to be lined must be knit sufficiently large to accommodate the lining and your hand. This means making the mittens longer and wider, and it means that the thumb must proportionately be kitted quite large indeed in order to prevent the finished, lined mitten thumb from strangling your actual thumb.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting blog on "lining mittens with fleece."

Lining mittens, part 1: thumb at the side

Today's post is the first of a two-part series on lining mittens. The illustration below shows the two main types of mittens: those with a thumb coming from the side, and those with a thumb coming from the front.


Today we'll line a side-thumbed mitten, and next post we'll do the front-thumbed version.

The best sort of lining for a mitten, in my humble opinion, is made of polar fleece. Polar fleece is a synthetic knitted fabric which has several terrific virtues. It is fabulously easy to wash, it is warm and non-itchy, it is cheap and easy to find in lots of colors and weights, and, best of all, you can cut it without having to seam it -- it will not ravel out. (For more information about Polar fleece, click here.)

In the illustrations below, the "good side" (the denser, fuzzier side) of the polar fleece fabric is illustrated in blue, the "not-so-good" side is illustrated in green. However, if keeping track of the sides is going to turn you away from using Polar Fleece, then, as set forth in greater detail at the very end of this post, just ignore that part of the instructions.

Step 1: Trace the outlines of the mitten on the not-so-good side of the polar fleece stop when you get to the straight part of the non-thumb side.

Step 2: flip the mitten over and trace it again, so that you get a double outline, joined along the outside edge, as shown. Cut out this shape without separating the two halves.


Step 3: Fold the shape in half along the dotted line, with the not-so-good side out and the good sides together on the inside.


Step 4: Pin, then sew the mitten lining form together, as shown. If you have a sewing machine, it'll just take a minute or two to sew the lining seams. If you have no sewing machine, it won't take much longer to hand sew the form shut, and the best stitch for this is the back stitch. (For more information about the back stitch, click here.)


Step 5: The sewn mitten lining form. Note that the seam is on the outside, and the "good side" (i.e.: the fuzzier side) is inside the form, where it will snug against your cold hands.


Step 6: Slip the lining form into the mitten with the "not-so-good" seamed side facing out, as shown.


Step 7: Once the lining is inside of the mitten, flip the whole business inside out, so that the "good side" of the lining is outside, while the whole mitten (flipped inside out) is inside the lining form. Pin the lining to the mitten, and sew, using the overcast stitch, as shown. For more information about sewing lining into a knitted garment using the overcast stitch, click here.


Once the lining is sewn in, flip the whole business inside out again, and you've got yourself a lined mitten.

Four final notes:

First, as you see, there is no seam allowance left when cutting the lining form. This is intentional: In Polar Fleece, you can sew quite close to the edge--1/4 inch or even less. Therefore, when you make your seam, you will make the lining form just that much smaller than the mitten, so that the form fits snugly inside the mitten. Obviously, the thicker the polar fleece you select, the thicker the seam will be, and the snugger the fit of the mitten form. I personally do not use fleece above "200" thickness for linings, and perhaps even a 100 or a micro lining would be useful for lining mittens, matching the thinner linings to a thinner knit. (If you missed the link above for more information about Polar Fleece, click here.)

Second, if you want to line a mitten, you have to knit it bigger (both wider AND longer) to make room for the lining. This is particularly true of the thumb which must be knit proportionally even bigger than the mitten itself, in order to accommodate the lining without cutting your circulation off and leaving you with a blue thumb.

Three, as you see, the cuff is not lined. It is obviously possible to line a cuff, but this tends to make the wrist stiff, and the mitten uncomfortable and unpopular. If you truly want to line the cuff, you must knit it quite loose to avoid these problems. Lined cuffs are not usually ribbed.

The last thing is this: As stated above, if you are confused by all this talk of "good side" and "not -so-good side," the good news is that on most Polar Fleece, it really doesn't matter much. There is a relatively rare kind of fleece which only has one fuzzy side, but on double-sided fleece, then unless you look pretty closely, it can sometimes be hard to tell which side even IS the fluffier "good" side. If all this chatter about sides is bogging you down down, then make sure to get double sided fleece, and just ignore these distinctions. The only really important thing is to insert the lining form with the seam on the side of the lining away from your hands, as shown in illustration 6.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on "lining hand-knit mittens"

Some ideas just make you say "WOW"

Sometimes you come across something something which opens your knitting mind in directions never considered before. I have been accumulating these WOW's for some time, and want to share them with you:

Ravelry

Many, perhaps most knitters already know about Ravelry, the knitting community website. Yet, if conversations with random knitters in airports and waiting rooms are any indication, Ravelry remains unknown to a surprising number. So, if you don't yet know, Ravelry is a black hole into which you will fall with your knitting, never to emerge. Need 3 ways to bind off at 3 AM? A new way of keeping track of your stash and needles? Are you seeking just more ball of a discontinued yarn? Ravelry is all that, and more. The brainstorm of Jessica Forbes and Casey Forbes who administer and run the site with grace and humor, Ravelry is a game-changer: what has up to now been essentially lone pursuit is now a social one and knitting information previously restricted by area, custom or expertise is now in the public domain, archived and searchable by all. Sign up HERE. PS:  As Angie points out in the comments, Ravelry is a site for crocheters, too. (Not to mention that spinners seem to have gotten in on the act when no one was looking!)

Use every inch of that
expensive, fancy yarn sock

Ravelry is great because of the neat people you "meet" and the great tips they post. Here is an example of a really splendid tip from an expert knitter on Ravelry, who goes by the Raverly-name of "Potteryfreak." Potteryfreak (real name Cheri) posted as follows:

You could do something wonderfully cool to make sure you get the maximum bang for your [expensive sock yarn] buck, if you are making a plain sock: Start with a ribbed cuff in contrasting yarn. Switch to your main yarn and knit one long sock-leg tube until you run out of yarn, then end it with a second cuff out of your contrasting yarn. Measure it and insert two lifelines a row or two apart at the center of your tube. Snip one stitch and unravel the row so that now you will have two equal-length tubes of sock. With your contrasting yarn, make your toes down from the live stitches on your lifelines and your afterthought heels in the appropriate spot.

Cheri was careful to note that the idea was not original with her, and that she wished she could remember where she'd read it so as to give credit where is is due. A great tip nonetheless, and thanks Cheri, for permission to re-print your post. (PS: Cheri has an online shop here.)

"Cable reassignment surgery"

The problem: the Boye interchangeable needles have many excellent qualities, but flexible cables are not among them. The solution: as a result of a brainstorm, Fleegle got her old Boye needlemaster tips drilled out by a gunsmith to accept the far more flexible Knitpicks cables. Fleegle is a brilliant genius. Read more about it HERE.

Home made yarn swifts

Two low-cost home-made yarn swifts that will have you slapping your head--wonderful Rube Goldberg devices of the first order. Webecca is a brilliant genius. Click HERE and HERE.

Three charting sites

Shut down your spreadsheet, put down your graph paper, retire your pencil. Instead, check out these three free charting sites
1. Chart-a-rama: Into the "form" box, you type a pattern written in standard knitting shorthand, formatted according to some easy-to-understand rules. Click "make the chart," and Chart-a-rama will automatically generate a perfectly-formatted knitting chart. This would be very handy if you prefer to work from charts, but only have a older-type knitting pattern written out in knitting shorthand instructions.
2. Knitting Chart maker by Jacquie: If you prefer to type in your chart symbols directly, this site has loads of symbols and is easy-to-use.
3. Microrevolt's Knitpro application makes a color chart directly from an image. Want to knit your dog's face onto the back of a sweater? Knit a message on your socks? Knit giant flowers onto your afghan? This app will create the chart for you, and it's pre-set at the correct knitting ratio of stitches to rows.

Needle gauge

I use a micrometer to size needles. It is accurate but delicate, so it never leaves the house. My needle gauges are allowed out of the house, but are flimsy and are now bent and banged up from their adventures. To the rescue came Agres, another Ravelry member, who noted in a post that "drill gauges are cheap and tough." A trip to a local hardware store confirmed that: for a few bucks, I landed a sturdy metal drill gauge with the sizes actually engraved into the metal, so they'll never rub off. With a conversion chart, or two my drill gauge sizes all. Perfect for road trips.

Surprisingly stretchy bind off

Last, but not least, here is a link to a new sort of  bind off--Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off. The raves are flying for this one! Try it yourself and see what you think. 

Thanks to all these great knitters who've illuminated the community of knitters with their generous sharing of time, talent and ideas.

--TK

Working in too-short ends: a classic dressmaker's trick, handy for knitters

Is there a knitter anywhere who has not had to work in a too-short end? The fix often smells faintly of desperation such as a dot of glue, or spells a lot of hard work, such as undoing the knitting to lengthen the end. Here is a classic dressmaking technique which may save the day next time you're faced with an end too short to work in by conventional means.

In illustration 1, there are two ends waiting to be worked in: one green and one pink. The green end is long enough to work in by the ordinary "skimming in" method, so first we'll see how that works. Then we'll look at the variation on this method which is a clever dressmaker's trick to work in the very short pink end.


Illustration 2 shows threading the green end through the eye of the needle.


Illustration 3: Pierce the needle through one or two plies of each underlying stitch, as shown.


Illustration 4: Draw the needle up all the way, which draws the end through the piercings you have made. Once the yarn is all drawn through, remove the needle from the yarn end by working the end out of the needle's eye. This leaves the yarn "skimmed in" to the back of the work. (For more information about the skimming-in method, click here.)

With the too-short end, this simple technique will not work, because the end to be worked in is shorter than the sewing needle. So, as shown in Illustration 5, if the yarn cannot be brought to the needle, the needle must be brought to the yarn. This is done by using the unthreaded needle to pierce through one or two plies of several stitches, as shown.


Illustration 6: Stop the needle when the eye is just opposite the too-short end. Without moving the needle, use some form of sewing ingenuity or employ some tiny tools such as a tiny crochet hook, or a needle-threading hook, or a wire threader for hand sewing to draw the too-short end through the eye of the needle.


Once the needle is threaded, draw up the needle, and keep drawing it up. As the needle travels through the fabric, the too-short end be drawn out of the eye, and will come off in the fabric.In other words, the needle will come out naked, but along the way, the too-short end will have been worked in to its fullest possible length, and illustration 7 shows the finished result.

One final note and two final links: The sort of needle to use for this job is a sharp pointed needle, and this is because you want to pierce through the underlying yarn. For more info about the two different types of sewing needles, click here. And, just in case you missed the link above for more information about the "skimming in" technique, click here.

--TK

You have been reading TECHknitting on: "working in short ends in knitting"

Matching your cast-on to your bind-off

Knitters often ask about making the cast-on edge match the bound off edge. ("Bind off" is also sometimes called "cast off," the two terms are interchangeable.) Making matching edges is especially important for knitting with lots of long edges, where the edges are close together: this scarf, for example.

Although this blog has touched on this issue in other posts, today's post puts it all together in one place: a TECHknitting round-up of how to match cast-on and bind-off. At the bottom of each method are the links to the illustrated how-to's.

Method 1: Provisional cast on
Do a provisional cast on. Knit your garment. Bind off using any method you like. Go back to the beginning of the work and remove the provisional cast on. Now, bind off the live stitches using the same bind off method you used at the garment end. The two ends HAVE to match because they were done exactly the same way.

• LINKS--

COWYAK provisional cast on
Crochet hook chain method of provisional cast-on

Method 2: Rolled stockinette edges
Cast on, using any method you like. Knit at least 5, and perhaps as many as 10 rows in plain stockinette. This makes a rolled edge to your garment. Start the garment according to the patten such that the stockinette roll rolls to the outside of the garment. At the end of the garment, knit the same number of rows of stockinette--again arranging matters so that the stockinette roll is to the outside. Bind off using any method you like. The stockinette rolls at the beginning and the end of the garment will hide the casting on and the binding off--the garment edges will therefore match: even though the cast on does not necessarily look like the bind off, no one will ever see them.

• LINKS--

Rolled edges (scroll to bottom of post for gallery)

Method 3: chained (cable) cast on matches stitch-over-stitch bind off
The chained cast on (also called the cable cast on) looks a good deal like an ordinary stitch-over-stitch bind off. If you use the cable chain cast on and the stitch-over-stitch cast off, you will have two edges which match closely.

• LINKS--

Chain cast-on, also known as "cable cast-on" or "knitting on"
Chain bind off

Method 4--tubular cast-on, tubular cast-off
A tubular cast on exactly matches a tubular cast off. So good is the match that they are, literally, indistinguishable, even for the person who knit them

• LINKS--

Tubular cast-on
Tubular bind-off

Method 5: Hemming
When an item is hemmed at both the cast-on and the bind-off, the edges look identical because they are identical.

• LINKS--

Sewing hems shut
Knitting hems shut

Have you got a match-matchy method you like?

--TECHknitter

Knitting from the center: "Belly buttons" and the umbilical waste cord method

includes 6 illustrations. click any illustration to enlarge

Why another method for center-started knitting?

Starting knitting from the center has gained a bad reputation. Knitters complain that it is fiddly, that their needles fall out, that tension is difficult to maintain. All these complaints are perfectly justified.

Nevertheless, there are lots of reasons why it makes sense to start projects from the center -- reasons both practical and aesthetic. A center-started hat can be tried to check the length as it is being knit. A center started shawl is a thing of beauty with its concentric rings of lace.

There are two main ways of starting knitting in the center. One is "Emily Ocker's cast on," as popularized by the late, great Elizabeth Zimmermann. The other is a trick called "disappearing loop," although it also goes by other names, such as "lighter circular cast on," etc. Despite my admiration (adoration?) of EZ, it is my humble opinion that disappearing loop is the better method: disappearing loop is invisible, Emily Ocker's cast on is not.

In our never-ending quest for knitting beauty, TECHknitting blog has featured a post about disappearing loop. Also, disappearing loop has been adopted by modern designers-- Brooklyntweed's "Girasole" shawl and Ysolda Teauge's pretty knitted toys have been started by this method, for example.

Yet, despite its beauty, disappearing loop does nothing to overcome the long-standing objections to center-started knitting. Also, as shown by various comments around the web, disappearing loop can be discouraging to try to learn from diagrams.

"Belly buttons" to the rescue! Belly buttons are a more simple (although more time consuming) method of starting from the middle, yet the end result is identical in looks AND structure to the lovely, yet fiddly, disappearing loop.

Belly buttons start with an "umbilical cord" of waste yarn which is later removed. The cord gives you something to hang onto, making knitting easier. Once removed, you get a neat little rosette of stitches--the eponymous "belly buttons." By this trick, you get all the beauty points of disappearing loop in a far less fiddly package.

How to start knitting from the center using
belly buttons and the umbilical cord waste yarn method

The first 8 steps are identical to the waste-tube method shown here. Rather than copy all those diagrams here, just click the link, then follow those instructions through step 8: the waste yarn tube of that post is the same thing, and is made the same way as the umbilical cord of the belly buttons we're knitting here. When you're done with step 8, do not go on to step 9--return here, OK?

[waiting...]

Are you back? Got everything up through step 8 on your needles? Good. To save you from having to click back and forth, Illustration A of this series is identical with step 8 of the previous post. The only difference between the two illustrations is the color scheme, which has been changed to help keep track of which post we are on.

Now, by working to the end of step 8, (same as illustration A) you've already made the entire umbilical cord, as well as the crucial first round of garment yarn--the round which will become the basis for the belly button. Specifically, illustration A, below, shows the umbilical cord which already has one round (ie: a front and a back row) of garment yarn attached.


For center-started knit items, you would normally work the second round of garment yarn as an increase round, and this is shown in illustration B, below. Note that the increase stitches have been made obvious in this diagram by coloring them darker--in real life, of course, the increase stitches would be the same color as the rest of the row in which they appear. The type of increase illustrated here is a backwards loop increase, which is very handy for center-started knitting. However, any sort of an increase could be put into this second round, so use whichever type your pattern calls for.


Many center-started flat objects feature an alternating two-round plan: First, a plain round, where there are no increases, then this is followed by a second round, an "increase round" where the increasing takes place. This is the plan we are following here. Illustration A shows the plain (non-increase) round, while illustration B shows the increase round.

Illustration C, below, shows this plan repeated several more times, with increase rounds following plain rounds. As you can see, after only a few rounds, the ever-increasing stitch count will be on the point of popping stitches off both ends of the dpn's you're knitting with. At this point, you'll need to rearrange your work either by the magic loop method onto a long circular needle, or add another dpn or two, so that you are knitting with 4 or 5 dpn's, as is usually done.

At this point too, you might choose to remove your umbilical cord and create the belly button. To do this, you catch the free loops of the garment yarn on a blunt-tipped (tapestry) needle which you have previously threaded with the tail of the garment yarn, as shown. Illustration C shows all the umbilical cord stitches removed at once, but this is for illustration purposes only, so that you can clearly see how all the loops are to be gathered. Normally, you remove the umbilical stitches one at a time, catching each freed belly button loop as it pops loose. (Take a look at illustrations 9a and 9b in the previous post for examples of this.) Also, as you'll note, the work has been flipped so the belly button is up and the needles are down, which gives a better view of what you're doing.

After the tapestry needle has been passed though all the live garment stitches, the needle is again passed through the first stitch-loop (and only the first stitch-loop) to prevent a gap from forming. The yarn is then drawn up s-l-o-w-l-y to prevent knotting, until all the stitches are snugged up into a center rosette of stitches and the belly button is thus created. Alternatively, it is not necessary to draw up the yarn all the way--you can make an attractive little hole in the middle of your work by simply not pulling the yarn up all the way when you snug the belly button shut and there is an illustration of that below.

In illustration C, we removed the umbilical cord waste yarn and made the belly button after knitting only a few rounds in garment yarn. This is usually a good idea, especially the first few times you do this trick--if you mess up on catching the belly button stitches, you haven't lost much work and it's painless to start again. However, as shown in illustration D, below, you can choose to postpone the umbilical cord/belly button surgery until the end of the project if you like. That's what was done in this illustration, to give a better before-and-after sequence.

As you see, the flat work radiates out from the umbilical cord. However, because the cord is taking up quite a bit of room in the very middle of the fabric, the fabric is humped up into a kind of a cone. Never fear--when the umbilical cord is removed, the fabric will lay far flatter.


Illustration E, below, shows the umbilical cord removed and the center belly button created as described above. The belly button in this picture has not been snugged up all the way, and this leaves an attractive little open-work circle in the middle of the work--very suitable for a lace item or an item which will be lined, such as a cushion cover to be inserted with a fabric-sheathed cushion form.


Illustration F, below, shows the same fabric with the belly button snugged up all the way. This is suitable for solid fabrics such as hats or tam tops, or cushion covers to be inserted with naked foam cushion forms.

Two additional notes

First, as tempting as it is, it's not a great idea to work in the tail by winding it around and around through the stitches of the belly button itself. Packing the belly button with yarn in this manner tends to make it stick out and become hard--a sort of an "outie" making a hard little knot right in the middle of your work. Of course, in lace, there really is nowhere else to hide the tail, but in anything heavier, see if you cannot weave or skim your tail into the stitches of the first few rounds. (Click here for further information on weaving in the tail stitches, click here for skimming.)

Second, the work illustrated here features 8 stitches cast on, and an increase of 8 stitches every second round. This is a very common number of stitches to cast on, and a common rate of increase (this is actually the default formula for a flat circle). However, umbilical cord cast on is not limited to this stitch count number or this rate of increase--it can successfully be used for any number of stitches cast on and any rate of increase. This is because increases do not start until the second round, as there must be an initial base ring of stitches to increase FROM. Therefore, this umbilical cord method will work for pretty nearly any sort of center-started knitted item -- from flat center-started shawls to pointy hats and mittens. You simply match the number of stitches cast on for the umbilical cord to the number of stitches you are supposed to cast on for your pattern, and away you go.

The bottom line

If you are looking for an easier-to-work method of beginning center-started knitting projects, the umbilical cord method of belly buttons makes a start as beautiful as disappearing loop, but is less fiddly, has less needle shedding and fewer tension problems. Although disappearing loop and umbilical cord belly buttons have very different constructions, they are really just two different routes to the same end result, with the belly buttons being easier to conceptualize (although more time consuming to work).

ADDENDUM: Just before hitting "post," I googled "belly buttons" to be sure that there was no unintended meaning to this phrase--a meaning possibly (cough cough) embarrassing to be associated with. Well, what did I find? No unintended meaning, no. But, here is another knitting blog "Two sticks and some string!" which has a post showing a similar cast on, and even called the same thing--"belly buttons."

So, I learned several things. First, there is nothing new in knitting--nothing which hasn't been invented before. Second, I humbly acknowledge that Rosemarie Buchanan, the inventive author of "Two sticks and some string!" has a prior claim to this name for this technique. I urge you to have a look--Rosemary's umbilical cords are made a bit differently, using a flat-knit umbilical cord, then going to 4 dpn's right away, and her method would be worth knowing, too. (And, I learned a third thing, too: do the google search FIRST, and not LAST!)

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on "the umbilical cord waste yarn method for center-started garments, or 'how to make knitted belly buttons.'"

Starting glove fingers, straps, belts and other tiny knitted tubes, with an aside on fruit flies

GOODBYE, FRUIT FLIES!

At ChezTECH it is harvest season and there are paper bags of tomatoes and zucchini and cucumbers standing all over the kitchen floor. Knitting at this time of year has its own distractions, chief among which at this point are fruit flies. So, before any knitting could happen today, the fruit flies HAD to go. Here's how it happened: All the overripe tomatoes were rounded up and put in the outside compost. Then, one last overripe tomato was put into the garbage and the lid left open. One hour later the trash was swarming. The last step was quickly closing the trash, taking it outside and letting the little pests fly away. Success!

Now that the fruit flies have returned to their natural habitat, we resume with our regular knitting content.

HELLO, KNITTING TINY TUBES!

Starting glove fingers, straps, belts cords and other tiny knitted tubes often makes knitters crazy. And once you DO get them started, these tiny tubes aren't all that easy to knit, either. But from now on, these troubles will be behind you.

Today we'll look at a neat trick to start tiny tubes and, once started, to knit them with good tension and no needle trouble. This method depends on two tricks: First, a waste yarn cast-on, and second, double pointed needles (dpn's) used in a bit of a tricky way--only 3 needles are used rather than the usual 4 or 5, with the result that the tubes are knitted flat and the needles don't fall out.

Step 1: Using waste yarn (illustrated in green) and a dpn of the size you will use to knit the tube, cast on the desired number of stitches, in illustration 1, below, eight stitches were cast on. The illustration shows a back loop cast on, but you can use any cast on you like: the waste yarn will be completely removed, so the cast on makes absolutely no difference.


Step 2: Slide the stitches to the other end of the needle


Step 3: Using the same technique as for I-cord, draw the running yarn to the right tip of the needle. Using a second double pointed needle, knit another row or two with the waste yarn. (click here for a tutorial on I-cord)


Step 4: After you've knitted several rows in this I-cord fashion, then on the next row, knit only HALF the stitches.

Step 5: In illustration 5, below, half the stitches have been knit off the yellow needle onto the purple needle. The next step is to FOLD the purple needle BEHIND the yellow needle, as illustrated by the fish-tailed arrow.

Step 6: Using a third (red) dpn, knit the stitches off the front (yellow) needle. The back (purple) needle will be acting as a holder--you won't need to hold onto it as you knit with the yellow needle and the red needle, because the loops of knitting which are around that back purple needle will hold that needle in the work, and this is especially true if you use a "grabby" dpn, such as one made of bamboo.

Once you have knit the remaining stitches off the front yellow needle, flip the work and continue in the same manner, using a third needle to work the stitches off the front needle, while allowing the back needle to act as a holder for the other half of the stitches.

Step 7: After working an additional few rows (each row is 1/2 a round), you will see that the loopy mess of the original I-cord-type rows are at the bottom of the work, and that the tension is improving. Work as many rows as you feel you need to to get the tension under control, and the work firmly settled. Of course, as you become more experienced in this trick, you will need fewer and fewer rounds of waste yarn, but for a first attempt, 6 or 8 or even 10 rounds are not too many.


Step 8: Now it is time to switch from waste yarn to garment yarn. To accomplish this, you simply drop the waste yarn and start knitting in garment yarn.

Two quick tips about this process: First, yes, there be big loop and some loose messy stitches right where the two yarns change, but these are easily tamed when the time comes for removing the waste yarn. If it bothers you, you can LOOSELY knot the two yarns together, remembering to unknot them before you perform step 9. Second, leave enough of a tail of the newly attached garment yarn to finish the work off--preview step 9 for details.

Once the waste yarn has been dropped and the garment yarn started, you simply knit the garment yarn in the same manner as for step 7. Again, as shown in illustration 8, below, you are knitting a flat tube, half a round at a time, using dpn's.

* * *

(Pssst--have you come from the post on belly buttons? If so, you can return quickly by clicking here)

* * *

Step 9: After you have worked at least a few rounds in garment yarn, you can remove the waste yarn, or you can choose to wait until the end of the project to remove the waste yarn. To remove the waste yarn, the easiest way is to pick it out, stitch by stitch, from the garment end--there is a loose end right where the waste yarn ends. Alternatively, you can simply cut the waste yarn tube with a scissors, making sure to leave 2 rounds intact, and then pick out these last two rounds carefully.

How you treat the newly revealed loops of the garment stitches as each pops loose of the waste yarn depends on how you want the end of your tiny tube to look.

If you simply want to snug the end of the tube up into a tiny rosette of stitches, then follow illustration 9a, below. A blunt-tipped (tapestry) needle has been threaded with the tail of the garment yarn (and this is why you were clever and left the tail somewhat long back in step 8). As each stitch-loop of garment yarn (blue) pops loose of the waste yarn (green) it is caught onto the sewing needle. After each garment stitch-loop has been caught as per the illustration, the needle is passed through the first stitch-loop (and only the first stitch-loop) again to prevent a gap from forming. The yarn is then drawn up s-l-o-w-l-y (this prevents knotting) until all the stitches are snugged up into a center rosette of stitches and the tube is thus closed.


If, however, you want to keep the stitch-loops of garment yarn live, the follow illustration 9b, below. As each stitch-loop of garment yarn pops loose of the waste yarn, it is caught on a double-pointed needle.


An example of where a dpn pick-up might be appropriate is when you might want to Kitchener stitch the end of glove fingers together--the Kitchener stitch makes a smoother, flatter finger-end than the little knot you'd get with the drawn rosette of stitches resulting from step 9a.

Another example of where a dpn pick-up might be appropriate is when you want a square end to a belt or strap you might make by this method.To get a square end, you'd cast OFF these live stitches, and this is why you left a long tail when you attached the garment yarn back in step 8. One thing to remember is that when you work DOWN from a cast on edge, you have one less stitch than you were expecting (click here for an explanation) so you either have to fudge OR cast on an extra stitch at the outset to avoid this problem.

A couple of final notes:
1. If you making glove fingers, consider making the very ends of the fingertips on a needle one size smaller than for the rest of the glove finger/glove body. This will make for a better fit and denser material right where you need it--on your COLD fingertips.

2. Use waste yarn of the same weight as, or thinner than, the garment yarn. If you use thicker yarn, your first row of garment stitches will be larger than the others, and that will make it difficult to have a nice finished product.

The very next post about "belly buttons" expand on this trick. It shows how to use a tiny tube of waste yarn as the start for a center-out item, such as a hat or a center-started blanket--click here to go to that post.

Have fun with this--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on: knitting tiny tubes: glove fingers, straps and belts.

I-cord tassels

Sorry for that for so long there has been no post. I broke my ankle, and when it finally healed (very well, thanks!) there has been SO much to catch up on (gardening season ...) that the blog has been on hiatus. Despite the bustle, however, a recent query on Ravelry inspired this quick post on I-cord tassels. Although similar in concept to regular tassels, I-cord tassels have fewer, thicker strands, for a different look.

1: Make several lengths of I-cord. The photo to the right shows 2 tassels, each made from 2 double-length cords and folded over.

2: The lengths are attached at the point of the garment by tacking them down (several stitches) using matching yarn threaded onto a blunt, large-eyed (tapestry) sewing needle.

3. As you can see, a short length of yarn is wound around the cords, perhaps 1/2 or 3/4 inch down from the connection point. This joins the separate lengths of I-cord and prevents them sticking out in all directions, while creating a small bobble above for the winding for the classic "tassel look."

4. For shorter tassels, a simple wind at the top to hide the tacking is all that is required, as the shorter cords look well sticking out in different directions.

5: For added effect, the ends of each length of I-cord is knotted in a simple overhand knot.

One final tip: The ends of all the sewing and winding yarns are simply hidden in the center tube of the I-cords, making this an easy-peasy project, indeed.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on "I cord tassels."

Jogless stripes redux, coming May 5, 2009

TECHknitting hits print!

Among the wonderful articles and patterns in the upcoming Summer 2009 issue of INTERWEAVE KNITS, there will be an article by TECHknitter (that's me!) on the subject of Jogless stripes.


Parts of the information covered has been seen before, but in a different format and with different illustrations (click here). In the magazine, this information is re-presented with all-new illustrations. Not previously covered on TECHknitting blog and new to the magazine is instruction on jogless barber-pole (aka helix) stripes, with a neat trick for making this kind of stripes easier (much easier!) as well as a trick for making the elusive single-row jogless stripe. Pick up a copy and see for yourself--on sale May 5th, or by subscription (click here).

I'm excited about this debut, and hope you will like TECHknitting in this new medium (print!)
--TECHknitter

Crossing stitches: one way to avoid a hole on a vertical opening in knitwear

On the community knitting board Ravelry, the subject has twice lately come up of crossing stitches to avoid a hole where a vertical opening (pocket slit, buttonhole, sleeve opening, division for the heeltab of a sock) is being made. Although it is not the only method for avoiding holes in this area, crossing stitches is a decent utility method for solving the problem and deserves a post of its own.

Illustration 1 shows the nature of the problem. Specifically, when two columns of stitches are to be separated, the only thing holding the fabric together under the separation is a single stand of yarn (illustrated in green). That single strand tends to stretch out, and will eventually leave a hole in this area.


Illustration 2 shows that by crossing the stitches in the row just under the separation, there will now be five strands of yarn to take the strain (green) rather than the single strand in illustration 1. (As to how to cross the stitches, the easiest way is probably to spear one stitch with a bobby pin and let it hang on the back or the front of the work, knit the next stitch, and then replace the stitch from the bobby pin onto the left needle, and then knit it. Whether you allow the bobby-pinned stitch to fall to the back or the front determines whether the front stitch of the crossed pair slants right or left)


Illustration 3 shows an application of this principle at the heel tab of a sock.


Illustration 4 shows crossed stitches at the bottom of a vertical opening such as a pocket slit or a vertical buttonhole, or at the bottom of a sleeve opening.



Illustration 5 is the same as illustration 4, but shown "in the wool." As you can see, the stitches are crossed differently in illustrations 4 and 5, and it is up to you to decide which way you like better--structurally, it makes no difference at all.


Crossing stitches makes a sturdy utility reinforcement--very good for socks, buttonholes, sleeve openings and children's clothing. However, this method makes a noticeable pucker in the fabric, and therefore is perhaps not so wonderful for a v-neck sweater, where (depending on the further edge treatment) the pucker created by crossing the stitches might be on very obvious display.

A note to knitting geeks: there is one additional application of crossing stitches which is quite lovely. When you KNOW you are going to use a Norwegian sleeve "psuedo-steek" (no additional stitches added for the steek) you can cross the stitches in the row UNDER where the cut for the sleeve steek is going to end. In other words, after you have secured the two columns of stitches on either side of the intended cut, then when you come to cut the "ladder" between the two columns, there will be a nice pair of crossed stitches at the bottom of the ladder, just waiting to take the strain at the bottom of the newly-made opening.

--TECHknitter You have been reading TECHknitting on "crossed stitch reinforcement for the bottom of a vertical opening in knitwear."

Casting on additional stitches at the end of a row by the loop cast-on method: a trick for beautiful edges

Today's installment of TECHknitting shows a trick for casting on (adding) stitches at the end of a row, or over a gap, such as over a peasant thumb on a sock, or over a pocket opening, or over a buttonhole.

Way back, in the fourth post ever released on TECHknitting blog, the looping-on method of casting on was introduced, with that post indicating that this method is fragile and of limited usefulness. Yet, there are some times when this cast-on, so unsuited to ordinary duty, simply shines--a real Cinderella of a cast-on. Specifically, when done right, the looping-on cast-on turns out to be ideal for adding stitches at the end of a row.

Now, the experienced knitters among you may be shaking your heads, and well you might: the loop cast-on at the end of a row usually ends up making an untidy mess of loose, loopy foundation stitches--a sad embarrassment at seaming time, and a truly terrible looking mess on an exposed edge. Yet, with all its faults, the loop cast-on can very easily be made directly from the running yarn of the adjoining row, and this ease of construction is simply not true of the alternative methods.

What if the advantages of this looping-on (ease of construction) could remain, but the loose mess could be eliminated? Well, here is a TECH-trick to do that--a trick which will tighten up this easy, yet messy method into respectability and true usefulness.

Step 1: Let us suppose that you have piece of stockinette fabric (illustrated in light blue) and you need to add four stitches at the end of a row of knitting. In this trick, we will get to four stitches eventually, but we are actually only going to start by adding only three loops. These three loops are illustrated in lavender. (To learn how to do the looping-on cast-on, click here.) The yarn connecting the garment stitches and the three newly-made loop st is illustrated in dark purple, and we will come back to that connector shortly.

Step 2: Turn the work.


Step 3: Knit the first stitch of the loop cast-on. This can be frustrating because the loop keeps wanting to untwist as you try to knit into it, but persevere. In the illustrations below, the first loop has been knitted, and the stitch knitted is illustrated in green.

Step 4: Knit the remaining 2 loops. You will now have on your right needle, three stitches plus a horrible, nasty, long length of yarn (illustrated in purple) connecting these 3 stitches to the rest of the knitted fabric, as shown below. Do not despair! This has been foreseen and will be eliminated in step 5.

Step 5: We will now preform the trick which will remove that extra slack, smarten up the loop cast on, and raise the stitch count to the proper number. Here's how: grasp the excess yarn (purple) between your thumb and forefinger, give it a half twist in the anticlockwise direction, and replace it on the LEFT needle.


Step 6: knit this stitch as you have done the previous loops


Step 7: the final result


Do you see what you've done? You've made a new loop, thus using up the excess yarn AND correcting the stitch count.

By this trick of casting on one less stitch than we need, then making the additional stitch out of the inevitable slack on the next row, we have turned the sloppy slack created by the loop cast on from a disadvantage into an asset.

In the example above, we have 4 stitches to add on by the loop method. However, if you have to add on a substantial number of stitches at the end of a row, the ratio to cast on is about 1/3 fewer stitches than the pattern calls for, then pick up the extra stitches by making loops, evenly spaced, all along the return row, with the last added-in stitch occurring just where the cast on is connected to body of the fabric, as shown in illustration 5.

As an example, if you had to cast on 30 stitches at the end of a row, you'd cast on only 20. On the return trip, you would loop up the extra 10 stitches, evenly spaced, all along the row, with the last (10th) stitch coming at the very end of the row of loops, just where the row is connected to the body of the garment.

The illustrations show stitches added at the right side of a stockinette fabric. You can add stitches on the left side just the same way, and you can purl into the loops on the return trip just as easily as you can knit into them.

Addendum added 4-7-09:  To cast on over a gap (thumb, pocket opening) simply cast on fewer stitches, then pick up the extra stitches out of the slack on your next trip through, just as you would on the return trip after casting on at the end of a row.  

A note for knitting geeks:
If you look carefully at illustration 7 (the completed cast on) you'll see that it looks just like a long tail cast on. In fact, a long tail cast on IS a row of loops with a row of knitting inserted. (More details about the long-tail cast-on here.) The reason the loop cast on is so loose when performed at the end of the row is because the foundation row of loops is made around a needle, instead of the way long-tail cast on is usually made, with the foundation loops snugged up around the knitted loops. In other words, by making the loops around a needle, they simply end up too big.

When you start to knit into these too-big loops on the return trip, the slack accumulates and turns into a really nasty-looking loose foundation edge. By casting on fewer stitches and then drawing the slack up to form the extra stitches necessary to complete the stitch count, this slack is eliminated. Of course, you can achieve the same effect by working the cast-on loops onto a much smaller needle, but then you have the problem of holding an extra needle parallel to your left needle, which involves acrobatics and a dexterity not required by the trick shown here.

One final refinement for ultra-perfectionists:
It sometimes occurs that even when the last loop is made at the end of the row, just before the body of the garment, you will STILL find an unacceptable length of yarn stretched there, just waiting to make a horrid mess at the join. If this is the case, create yet another loop to get rid of the slack, place this surplus loop on the left needle, and knit (or purl) this surplus loop away by k2tog'ing (or p2tog'ing) it together with the first stitch of the fabric of the garment.

--TECHknitter  You have been reading TECHknitting on: "An improved method of casting on at the end of a row by the loop method."

Ordinary chain bind off, part 3: binding off circular knits

Includes 13 illustrations Click any illustration to enlarge

When using an ordinary chain bind off to cast off a circularly knitted garment, there are several methods of dealing with the last stitches:

• the gappy default
  
• Method 1--an OK method
  
• Method 2--a pretty good method
  
• Method 3--an excellent method
  

The gappy default:

The gappy default is to simply chain bind off all the way around, and then to end the bind-off by pulling the tail yarn (yellow) through the last stitch (blue). In this default method, the knitter simply accepts the gap between the first stitch bound off (green) and the last stitch bound off (blue) as shown on the illustration below.

The OK method (method 1)

To close the unsatisfactory gap left by the default method, a refinement has been added by many knitters, as follows:

1a: After binding off the last stitch (blue) thread the tail (yellow) onto a blunt tipped, large-eyed sewing needle ("tapesty needle"). Insert the tapestry needle up into the blue stitch from underneath, as if you were pulling the final tail through the last stitch in ordinary chain bind off per the default method. Next, insert the needle from the back to the front, under BOTH arms of the first stitch bound off (green). Illustration 1a shows the tail (yellow) worked through the last stitch bound off (blue), and the needle inserted under the two arms of the first stitch bound off (green).

1b: Th needle, which has been drawn through the green stitch to the front, is then re-inserted into the top of the blue stitch, inserting from the top, downwards, as shown.

1c: This method creates a bridging stitch (yellow) between the last stitch bound off (the blue) and the first stitch bound off (green). As you can see, the bridging stitch actually acts as an additional chain bind-off stitch inserted into the top of the bind off. Truthfully, in thin yarn, this extra stitch (yellow) is unlikely to ever be noticed, but in bulky yarn, that extra (yellow) stitch may cause an awkward bump.

The GOOD method (method 2)

In order to maintain the pattern of bound-off stitches around the top without inserting an extra stitch, method 2 has you stop the chain bind off one stitch before the end. Thus, the last stitch bound off (blue) stops when there remains one fabric stitch "live" (not bound off) and that is the orange stitch. Specifically:

2a: To work method 2, the first step is to thread the tail (yellow) onto a tapestry needle. The needle is then inserted purlwise into the last remaining live fabric stitch (orange) as shown in illustration 2a, and next inserted up into the last stitch bound off (blue) from underneath.

2b: The needle is drawn through the top of the last stitch bound off (blue) and next inserted from the back to the front, under BOTH arms of the first stitch bound off (green).

2c: The needle, which has been drawn through the green stitch to the front, is then re-inserted into the top of the blue stitch, working from the top downwards, and then inserted knitwise into the top of the orange stitch, as shown below.

2d: As you can see, the result of method 2 is really pretty good. The (yellow) bridging stitch which you have created with the tail yarn is not an extra stitch as it was in method 1: although the yellow stitch was worked with a sewing needle, it is actually a knitted chain bind-off stitch worked into the top of the final live fabric stitch (orange). In fact, this little trick of making knit stitches with a sewing needle is the same idea as the Kitchener stitch (also called grafting). In other words, method 2 grafts the top of the last stitch bound off (blue) to the top of the first stitch bound off (green), while also binding off the last live fabric stitch (orange) all this while following the same path which the other knitted bind-off chains have followed.

The EXCELLENT method (method 3)

Now circular knitting, as you know, is not actually done in circles. Rather, circular knitting is done in an endless spiral, where each round has no true beginning or end. This means that any method which simply binds the last stitch to the first will create a jog where the level changes. Specifically, the last stitch bound off (blue) is actually one row higher than the first stitch bound off (green) and so there is a little jog where the levels are drawn together: the green stitch is humped up slightly, while the blue stitch is drawn down. For sheer perfection, it is possible to modify method 2 by adding one more refinement to the top of a circular bind off, and this last refinement (method 3) does away with this level change--it eliminates that jog.

Normally, the jog of the level change in spiral knitting is smoothed over by simply sliding the first stitch of the round from one needle to the next, thus forcing it to span two rows. (This is the trick behind eliminating the jog in jogless stripes). However, simply slipping a stitch at the top of the work would result in the bar behind the slipped stitch perhaps showing on a rolled edging (as you know, a rolled edging exposes the purled side of a stockinette fabric, so that the bar behind the stitch slipped across would show).

Therefore, we've got to find another trick to reduce the height level between the first stitch bound off and the last stitch bound off (blue) and the trick we'll use in this case is to knit into the stitch below. Here's how:

3a: Begin this method by knitting a stitch into the stitch below. (Click here for further information on knitting into the stitch below.) In this case, the orange stitch above has been knit into the purple stitch below. Both of these stitches are then caught onto the same holder (in this case, the coil-less safety-pin illustrated). The chain bind-off now proceeds in the ordinary manner beginning with the following (green) stitch. (Note that as you start the chain bind off, it's important not to draw up the running yarn too tightly. If you skip ahead to step 3e, you'll see that it is necessary to leave a moderate amount of slack in the orange stitch. How much slack? In this, as in so many things in knitting, use makes master.)

3b: The bind-off proceeds around the garment, and comes back to where it began, stopping when the stitches on the holder are reached. The tail (yellow) is threaded onto a tapestry needle, and inserted purlwise into BOTH stitches on the holder, the orange and the purple. This step ends when the needle is inserted up into the last stitch bound off (blue) working from underneath, upwards, as shown.

3c: The needle is drawn out through the top of the blue stitch, and next inserted from the back to the front under BOTH arms of first stitch bound off (green).

3d: The needle, which has been drawn through the green stitch to the front, is re-inserted into the last blue stitch, working from the top, downwards, as shown. The needle is then inserted knitwise into the orange and purple stitches, as shown.

3e: As you can see, knitting the orange stitch into the purple stitch helps eliminate the jog. Leaving a moderate amount of slack in the orange stitch back in step 3a means that this orange stitch has enough play to stetch across the change of level. Also, because this orange stitch was knitted into the purple stitch below it rather than bing slipped, there is no slipped yarn acorss its back to show on the purl side of a rolled edging. As in method 2, the green and blue stitches are connected by the yellow bridging stitch, which also binds off the remaining live stitches (orange and purple).

As to which method to use, the choice is obviously yours.

My own usage is as follows: On a toe-up sock top, method 1 (the OK method) is fine--the yarn of a sock is so thin that the extra chain stitch squeezed in will never show. Plus, trying to work method 2 or method 3 means working a sewing needle in the correct sequence through very small stitches indeed--a job which would certainly require me to get up out of my chair and hunt out a pair of magnifying glasses. On a bulky hat brim, method 2 is the method I would use: The slight jog would look better to my eyes than the doubled bulk of method 3. However, on the bound off edge of a garment knit circularly in the range of 5 st/in to about 6.5 st/inch, I would certainly choose Method 3, the excellent method, especially if the garment has a rolled edge. Done correctly, method 3 simply will not show--it is even hard to find if you go hunting for it with your glasses on.

Of course, there is always a rascal in paradise, and so it is here. With all three of these methods, the tail remains loose and has to be worked in. For this, I personally would pull off the tapestry needle, re-thread the tail yarn onto a nice sharp needle, and skim in the end. For a rolled edge, I'd skim on the stockinette (front) face of the fabric, just in the first row down, where the skimming would be hidden by the roll of the fabric.

--TK
You have been reading TECHknitting on: Casting off circular knits.

Ordinary chain bind off, part 2b: binding off in the middle of a fabric--ending the bind off

includes 8 illustrations click any illustration to enlarge

The last post was about starting a chain bind off in the middle of a fabric. This post is about ending the chain bind off.

At the end of your bind off for a pocket or a neck opening, you may often find that the last stitch looks messy. This is because the traditional method of ending a chain bind off in the middle of a fabric is to work the last stitch by the same method as you have made the intermediate stitches. Per illustration 1, at the red arrow, this results in the passed-over bar of the last bound off loop showing on the face of the fabric.

Let's diagram this bind off, so we can analyze the stitches one-by-one.

• the second to the last stitch of the bind-off is illustrated in BLUE
  
• the last stitch of the bind off (also called the final stitch of the bind off) is illustrated in GREEN
  
• the first stitch made in the fabric just past the left end of the bound-off opening is illustrated in PURPLE
  
• The stitch in the row below the first fabric stitch is illustrated in BLACK.

As we saw in the photo in illustration 1, and as repeated by the red arrow in illustration 2, with the traditional bind off, the passed-over loop of the last (green) bind-off stitch lays over the first (purple) fabric stitch. This bound-off loop interrupts the smooth march of the column in which the purple stitch lies, and that interruption is what makes the left edge of the bind off look so sloppy. 

Our mission today is to get rid of that interruption. We'll smooth off the left edge all neat and tidy, so that the purple stitch lies in an uninterrupted column of stitches. We are going to reach this goal by using a combination of  k2tog  and a pull-up of a stitch from the row below to eliminate the passed-over bar.

a: Bind off until you are at the second-to-last stitch (blue)

b: Do NOT knit the final stitch (green) to be bound off. Instead, pull the green stitch up onto the right needle--this is the pull-up of the stitch from the row below discussed above. 

c. Pass the blue stitch over the green stitch as if you were doing an ordinary bind off, but hold the running yarn in the back when you do it. This passes the loop of the blue stitch, which has already been knitted, over the loop of the green stitch, which is not yet knitted.

d: Return the final (green) stitch to the left needle, so it lays just to the right of the black stitch.

e: knit the black stitch together with the green stitch (k2tog). The illustration shows the result after you've k2tog'd the green and the black stitch: the k2tog arranges the black stitch on top, while the green stitch is hidden behind, and the first fabric stitch past the bind off--the purple stitch--has no bar laying over it.  In other words, the bar lays over the green stitch, and that green stitch AND the bar are hiding behind the black stitch, instead of laying over the purple stitch! Neat, huh? 

OPTIONAL: The illustration above shows the final (green) stitch simply knitted together with the black stitch. However, as an optional additional step, if you find that the green stitch is so loose that bits of it keep popping out from behind the black stitch, you can tighten it by twisting it a couple of times before you return it to the left needle in step d.

illustration 3 is a photograph showing what this bind-off ending looks like in real life, in all-green yarn.

As shown by the red arrow, the column in which the final stitch lays is not interrupted by the bar of the final stitches' bind off, because we have hidden that last bar. Our goal of a tidy and uninterrupted column for the first fabric stitch has been met.

One last note to dispel possible confusion: All the stitches in illustrations 1, 2 and 3 have been worked to the end of the row because the bind off is complete.  Therefore, the working yarn is not shown: it is "off the screen" so to speak.  This is in contrast to the step illustrations a-e:  in these illustrations, the bind off is shown in progress, and therefore, the working yarn--still in use--IS shown. 

--TECHknitter 

(You have been reading TECHknitting on: "ending a bind off in the middle of the fabric.")

Ordinary chain bind off, part 2a: binding off in the middle of a fabric--starting the bind off

8 illustrations Click any illustration to enlarge

A buttonhole, a pocket opening, the bottom of a neck opening: these are all examples of binding off in the middle of a fabric. This sort of binding off often looks very sloppy indeed, both where it starts (at the right edge of the bind off) as well as where it ends (at the left edge of the bind off)

Today's post concerns the starting part of the bind off--the right edge. The next post will be about the ending part of the bind off--at the left edge.

Let's say that our pattern requires us to bind off several stitches in the middle of our fabric, using the chain bind off. (Click here for further information on the basics of the chain bind off). First we'll look at the traditional method, and then the improved method.

The traditional method

Illustration 1, below: Many books do not have any preparation step for binding off in the middle of the fabric. Rather, you are instructed to simply begin with an ordinary chain bind off as illustrated below: the last stitch of the fabric will be the teal stitch, while the first stitch bound off will be the purple stitch, which is being drawn over the green stitch. As you can see, the purple stitch is connected to the teal stitch by the little red tail, and we'll talk more about that little tail in illustrations 3 and 4, below.
Illustration 2, below: According to the traditional method, you are then instructed to continue the bind off as for an ordinary bind off, so the situation looks like this:
Illustration 3, below: As you can see, using the traditional method, the last fabric stitch (teal) and the first bind off stitch (purple) are connected by nothing other than a single strand--the tail yarn which connects the teal stitch to the purple stitch. This little tail (red) is going to form the bottom right corner of the bind off.

Sadly, over time, the result is going to be an ugly and weak gap. As the teal stitch and the purple stitch stretch ever further apart they will stretch and expose that single red tail. In close-up, the situation is going to look like this:
Photograph 4, below: Here it is in real life, in all-purple yarn. The red arrow is pointing to the stretched-out single tail in the lower right corner of the bind off.

The improved method

To get rid of this ugly, weak gap, let's try this trick: instead of starting the bind off with the purple stitch, we'll do a little sleight-of-hand with the teal stitch. Remember that what we want to do is to improve the connection between the last fabric stitch and the first bind off stitch. As it turns out, when we use a kfb increase (knit front, back), the two daughter stitches which result are hooked together by a veritable spider's web of yarn. So, let's turn that fact to our advantage.

(For illustrated instructions on how to work a kfb, click here.)

We'll use a kfb increase and force the teal stitch to do double duty by turning it into the last fabric stitch AND the first bind off stitch. In this manner, we'll be able to position that strong connection between the two stitches just at the weak corner. In other words, in this improved version of the chain bind off, we are going to use the kfb increase to create TWO teal stitches--one to lay in the fabric, and one BONUS stitch, with the strong connection between these two stitches positioned at the weak corner.

Illustration 5, below: Under this new improved method, when we come to knit the teal stitch, we will work it as a kfb into its underlying foundation stitch. As you can see from the illustration below, this results in TWO teal daughter stitches. The kf part of the foundation stitch lays under the first teal stitch, and this part of the foundation stitch is brown, whereas the kb part of the foundation stitch lies under the second teal stitch, and this part of the foundation stitch is orange.Illustration 5, above, shows the very real benefit of using the kfb increase. You see, due to the kfb increase, the two teal stitches are not merely connected by one single tail like ordinary stitches--no! Rather, they are connected by three strands of yarn: the two orange strands in the twisted portion--the kb portion--of the foundation stitch, as well as the one-strand-tail (red) between the two teal stitches themselves, making three strands altogether. So, instead of the single red tail from illustration 3, by the traditional method, we have three strands--two orange and one red--to fortify our corner by this kfb trick. (There is a close-up of this in illustrations 7 and 8, further down this post.)

Per illustration 6, below, we'll begin our improved bind off by drawing the second teal stitch--the bonus stitch which we made--over the purple stitch, then the purple stitch over the green, and so on.Here is something important to remember about the teal bonus stitch: We do not COUNT it as a bound off stitch. Remember: the second teal stitch is an EXTRA stitch which we've created with only one purpose in mind: to put more yarn into that weak right corner of the bind off. Because we created it as an extra stitch, a bonus stitch, we do not count it when we get rid of it again.

In other words, the second teal bonus stitch flashes into existence for only a brief moment: we create it, then draw it over the first stitch to be bound off, and then the bonus stitch is gone forever. It leaves behind only a stronger corner, but it never alters our stitch count. It is only when we draw the purple stitch over the next (green) stitch that we start counting our bound off stitches--the purple stitch, NOT the teal bonus stitch is the FIRST bound off stitch.

Below, illustration 7, is a close up of what the improved corner looks like once we've add the teal kfb bonus stitch. As you can see, the corner which had only a single, weak red tail by the traditional method now has a sturdy spider's web of yarn fortifying the corner in this improved version. Instead of one strand of yarn, three strands of yarn lie there now--the two strands at the top of the bonus stitch's foundation stitch (orange) as well as the bonus stitch's own tail (illustrated in red). This construction will last far longer than the unimproved traditional corner of illustrations 3 and 4.Photograph 8, below: here is what the kfb looks like at the start of a bind off, in real life, in all-purple yarn. Although you can see the extra yarn in illustrations 5, 6 and 7, yet in an actual photograph (8) you can see that all these extra fortifying loops are actually hidden away, and all you see is the front of the bonus stitch. In other words, even though you've packed that formerly weak corner with lots of yarny fortification, the front presents a nice, even appearance instead of the the loose, sloppy and weak single strand in illustration 3 and photograph 4, above.

I think you will find that over time, this little trick of fortifying the right corner of a bind off by starting the bind off with a kfb will pay off in sturdier buttonholes, more robust pocket openings, and easier to pick-up-through neck openings.

One last thing--are you worried that adding an extra stitch to the corner will make the opening too large? In my experience, that won't happen. In fact, the tight twist introduced by the kfb will keep the starting (right) edge of the bind off tighter than by the original method, because you won't have a stretched-out mess in the corner there.

Due to other plans, the next installment of this series cannot be posted until after the first week in January. When we meet again, we will consider the left hand (finishing) end of binding off in the middle of the fabric.

I wish everyone a very happy new year--may the economy recover, and may we all have a good year, in happiness and health.

--TECHknitter
(You have been reading TECHknitting on: "bind off (cast off) in the middle of a fabric.")

Ordinary chain bind off part 1: binding off along a straight edge

This is the first post of a three-post series on the "chain" or "stitch-over-stitch" bind off, also called "cast off." Today's TECHknitting is about a simple chain bind off along a straight edge. Do you already know how to do this? If so, skip to the bottom where there are three different methods for working the last stitch--methods to help avoid that sloppy last loop.

Before we get started, a preview: The other posts in this series will be: chain bind off to make an opening in the middle of a garment. This is what you'd do for a pocket or a buttonhole, or at a neck division, for example. A link will be placed here when that post goes live.

Chain bind off to smoothly close the top of an item knit circularly--the top of a drop shoulder-style sleeve, for example, or a tubular scarf. A link will be placed here when that post goes live.

For today, ordinary stitch-over-stitch bind off along a straight edge--the top of a scarf; the neck of a sweater, for example.

Step 1: Knit a stitch (purple) in the ordinary manner.

Step 2: Knit the next stitch (green) in the ordinary manner. You now have two stitches on your right needle.

Step 3: Insert the left needle into the first (purple) stitch on the right needle.
Step 4: Draw the first (purple) stitch over the second (green).

Step 5. Knit another stitch in the ordinary manner (pink). You will again have two stitches on your needle, just as in step 2. In other words, step 5 is the same as step 2.
Step 6: Continue in this manner, repeating steps 2, 3 and 4 to create a bound off edge as shown below.
There are (at least) three ways to do the last stitch so as to avoid a great big loop at the end.

Method a (below) Work to the end of the row as you have been doing. Draw the second-to-last stitch (blue) over the last stitch (tan), break the tail (orange) short, and thread the end through the last loop as shown. Draw up S-L-O-W-L-Y, feeding as much yarn as possible from the tan loop into the orange tail as you draw the tail up, in order to avoid that big loop at the end.

Method b. (below) Work to the end of the row, but do NOT draw the second-to-last stitch (blue) over the last stitch (tan). Instead, break off the tail (orange) and thread it through BOTH last loops, then draw the tail up. Again, be sure to tighten the orange tail slowly while feeding excess yarn from the last two loops (blue and tan) into the tail, in order to avoid having sloppy last loops.

Method c. (below) Work to within one stitch of the last stitch. Do not knit the last stitch at all. Instead, draw the last (tan) stitch on your left needle up from the row below and draw the second-to-last stitch (blue) over it. In other words, do not knit this last stitch--which is the very edge stitch of your fabric--the "selvedge stitch." Instead, simply pull this (tan) selvedge stitch up, and then draw the second-to-last (blue) stitch over it.

Break off the yarn and draw the tail (orange) of the yarn through the selvedge stitch (tan), as well as the second-to-last stitch (blue). In this illustration the selvedge stitch (tan) is extra-long, because this knitter has been making a chain selvedge all along the fabric edge. However, a chain selvedge is not required to make this kind of ending--any sort of selvedge stitch will do just fine.
Stitch-over-stitch chain bind off has the potential to be tight. If you want a loose bind off, such as at the edge of a scarf or afghan, or at the top of a sock, hat or at a mitten cuff, work this bind off with larger needles than you worked the item knitted. However, sometimes a tight, or at least, a firm, bind-off is wanted, such as at the shoulder seams or the back of the neck of a garment. A firm bind off in these high-stress locations prevents the garment from sagging, stretching and drooping. The stitch-over-stitch bind off is a good match for these situations.

One final thing: HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! May you receive everything you need, and may you and your family and friends all welcome the holidays in health and happiness.

--TECHknitter

You have been reading TECHknitting on chain bind off (cast off).

A useful increase: knit into the front, knit into the back of the same stitch

A review of the TECHknitting indexes shows that there are some techniques not yet illustrated, techniques which will be handy on the road ahead.

Here is one such technique. It is called "knit into the front, and then the back of the same stitch," and is sometimes abbreviated

• k 1 f, b (knit 1 front, back) or
• k f/b (knit front/back) or simply
• kfb (knit front back)

As you can guess, knitting twice into the same foundation stitch causes this one foundation stitch give birth to two new daughter stitches, which is how this trick comes to be an increase.

Here is the how-to:

1. (below) This is the "before" picture of the foundation stitch into which you will kfb. In the illustration, the front of the foundation stitch (the right arm, which lays forward on the needle) is blue, while the back of the foundation stitch (the left arm, which lays behind the needle) is green. The running yarn--which will become the first part of the kfb--is pink.

2. (below) The pink running yarn has been knitted in the regular knitting way, and now lays as a loop on the right needle. Note that the foundation stitch (half green and half blue) has not been slid off the left needle. In other words, even though you have already knitted into the foundation stitch, you have only done the first half of the operation (the knitting into the front of the stitch) and therefore, the kfb stitch must remain on the left needle for the second half of the operation.


3. (below) The next step will be to knit into the back arm (the green arm) of the foundation stitch. The red arrow shows the path the needle must take. Specifically, you must swing the needle around to the back of the work, then down through the left arm of the foundation stitch, as shown by the arrow.


4. (below) As you see, swinging the right needle down and through the back (green) arm of the foundation stitch has twisted the foundation stitch into a figure "8," with the right needle through the TOP part of the stitch. Note that the bottom part of the foundation stitch is not twisted, only the top part of the stitch.

Once you have the needle through the top of the foundation loop, the next step is to pull through the running yarn (now colored purple).


5. (below) Here is the finished kfb with the purple running yarn drawn as a loop though the back (green) arm of the foundation stitch.

As you can see, the (pink) stitch through the front (blue) of the foundation stitch is drawn though the untwisted bottom part of the foundation stitch, while the (purple) stitch drawn though the back (green) arm of the foundation stitch is drawn through the twisted top portion of the foundation stitch--the twist having been made back in steps 3 and 4 when the right needle was inserted for the second time into the foundation stitch.


6 and 7. (below) Kfb has a reputation as an amateurish sort of an increase, but this reputation is undeserved. A regular series of kfb's looks very well, as the two final illustrations show.

--TECHknitter

You have been reading TECHknitting on "knit into the front, knit into the back, abbreviated k1 fb or k f/b or kfb"

"My finger hurts from pushing back the left needle tip"

Have you ever given yourself a sore fingertip from pushing back the pointed end of the left knitting needle to bring up the new stitches to be knit? Many knitters use their right forefinger to push back the tip of the left needle (the one with the stitches about to be knit) as a way of delivering fresh stitches to the left needle tip. Some have gone so far as to split the skin of their right forefinger from the repeated jabs.

Even if the problem doesn't extend as far as an actual wound, "pushers" are pretty much prevented from using the really really pointy needles that can make some knitting so much easier (p5tog, anyone?)

So, for all the sore-fingered pushers, here is a little trick: use the barrel of the opposite needle to push back the needle tip. Here's how in three illustrated steps

1. (below) Pinch the right needle firmly (pinch indicated by light brown area)

2. (below) Slide the left needle between the pinching fingers until the tip of the left needle touches the barrel of the right needle.

3. Bracing the left needle tip against the barrel of the right needle, pinch the left needle AND the stitches you want to slide with your left fingers (pinch indicated by light brown area) and push along the needle so the stitches slide towards the left needle tip. The left needle point won't go skidding off the barrel of the right needle, because the right fingers prevent that. Note that the right fingers aren't actually holding the left needle at all--they are only guiding the left needle while pinching the right needle.

--TECHknitter
You have been reading TECHknitting on "how to prevent a sore finger when knitting"

Knitting into the stitch below

4 illustrations, click any illustration to enlarge.
Instructions for various fabric patterns instruct you to "knit into the stitch below." Sometimes, the instructions are a bit more elaborate, stating something like this: "stab the right needle into the stitch below the next stitch on your left needle, knit that stitch, then drop it and the stitch above it off the left needle at the same time."

If this confuses you, you are not alone. Here it is, illustrated:

Step 1: Normally, you would insert the right needle into the blue stitch, because the blue stitch is the next stitch coming up on the left needle. However, to knit into the stitch below, you must locate the stitch BELOW the blue stitch, which is the green stitch in this diagram. Note that it is going to be easier to knit into the green stitch if you get a good grasp of the fabric and stretch it out, which will open the green stitch so that the right needle can be easily inserted along the red arrow path. (If you click on this diagram, it will become much larger, and it will be easier to see all the details.)

Diagram 1 (above) shows a continental knitter (yarn fed on off the left hand) but it matters not which hand feeds the yarn: in this stitch (like every knitting stitch) the path of the yarn through the stitch is the same for continental (left handed feed) and English/throwing style (right handed feed).

Step 2: The right needle has been inserted into the green stitch along the red arrow path of diagram 1, the standing yarn (pink) has been caught on the right needle and the loop of pink yarn, shown pulled through the green stitch, is about to become the newest stitch on the right needle. As you can see, the blue stitch (stitch above) has not yet been released from the left needle. Releasing the blue stitch is the last step in the process, because, by tensioning the blue stitch (stitch above) between the right and left needles while stretching the fabric downward with one or two hands, it is much easier to pull the running yarn (pink) through the green stitch (stitch below).

Diagram 2 (above) above features an English style (throwing) knitter, and the yarn is being fed off the knitter's right hand. Again, the path of the yarn through the stitch is not altered by the hand doing the yarn feed. (If you want to read more about left-handed feed vs. right-handed feed, click here.)

Step 3: The blue stitch (stitch above) has been released and the pink loop is now officially a stitch, sitting on the right hand needle. Note the path of the pink yarn through BOTH the blue AND the green stitches. This is because the blue stitch, which has not been knitted, "runs down" one row until the pink yarn through the green stitch catches it and prevents it from running further.


There are two general uses of this trick. First, it is sometimes used to get rid of a stitch--to park a stitch in the row below and get it out of the way. As an example, in the post of March 3, 2009, TECHknitting applies this technique of "a stitch in the row below" to improve binding off in the round (click here, scroll to third method). 

Another, more common use, is to make fancy, lofty stitch patterns similar to brioche stitches. These sorts of "waffle knits" are cushier than ordinary knits: the technique of knitting into the row below draws up the fabric, making it shorter and thicker, as shown in Illustration 4, below.

This particular stitch pattern is called embossed rib by some and fisherman rib by others, and is made by working back and forth (flat knitting) on an uneven number of stitches, as follows:

• Purl every other row (that is, rows 1, 3, 5 and so on)
• On the knit side (rows 2, 4, 6 and so on) *knit 1, then knit into the row below, repeating from * all the way across the row, ending with a knit 1.

--TECHknitter
You have been reading TECHknitting on: "Knit into the row below," also called "knit into the stitch below."

Provisional cast on--knitting up vs. knitting down

Back in December '06, TECHknitting featured provisional crocheted cast on. That post promised a future trick to get around a long-standing problem--that there is ALWAYS going to be one fewer loop working down than working up. In October '07, this blog showed another method of provisional cast on: the COWYAK method. In the comments to that post, a reader touched on the same issue, writing...

"When I unzip my provisional cast-on, why are there one fewer stitches going "down" than going "up," AND, what can I do about it?"

Look at your hand. If you are like most people, you have five fingers. But how many spaces do you have between your fingers? For 5 fingers, there are only 4 spaces between your fingers.

The same thing happens in knitting when you work the other way from a provisional cast-on. If you cast on a certain number of stitches and work "up," when you "unzip" the provisional casting on, you'll have one fewer live stitches to knit "down."

In other words, if you provisionally cast on 10 stitches and then undo the cast on, there will only be nine stitches waiting for you to pick up to knit "down." It's not a mystery--it's just the same thing as your fingers--ten stitches knitted "up" leave only nine spaces between them, and that's what you're picking up with the provisional cast-on--the nine spaces.

Of course, the "spaces" analogy is not perfect--we obviously have loops on the needle, not spaces when we catch the live loops from a provisional cast on. However, like the spaces between our fingers, these loops are the bars between the stitches, they are the stitch TAILS, not the actual loops themselves.

Below is a view of what this would look like in real life if you removed the provisional cast-on, took the needles out, and could make the fabric lie flat. See that complicated business on the right and the loop on the left? That's what happens when you pull out the provisional casting-on: The half loops of the rightmost and leftmost tails get pulled upwards to the next row, leaving only the full loops of the tails between the upwards loops: 5 upward loops make 4 downward tails, 9 upward loops make 8 downward tails. In other words, the pattern remains the same: always one fewer downward loops than upward loops.


Now, the upside (har!) is that there are at least two elegant ways to solve this problem. Actually, there is a very good third method which involves an alternative to provisional casting on, and a link will be placed here when that post goes live. For now, however, the two techniques...

TECHnique #1:
Let's say that you want to knit on 8 stitches. Try this trick: provisionally cast on 9 stitches. On the first and second row, knit all 9 stitches. On the third row, knit 2 stitches together (k2tog) where you think they'll be least obvious. In plain stockinette, see if you like the k2tog right in the middle, or if you find an edge less obvious. I vote for the middle of the row, but you must make up your own mind. On the illustration below, the needles and the provisional cast off have been removed, and the fabric has magically been made to lie flat. As you can see, the k2tog is in the middle of the row, picked out for you in green. There were originally 9 stitches cast on and worked "up," leaving 8 tails. However, after the k2tog, there are a matching set of 8 live loops at the top and bottom of this work.


To summarize this technique:

• Provisionally cast on one extra stitch
• Row 1 and 2: Knit every stitch going "up"
  
• Row 3: Somewhere along the third row, wherever you think it will be least obvious, k2tog to get rid of the extra stitch going "up."
  
• Rows 4 and following: knit normally
• when the time comes to "unzip" the provisional casting on, you will have the correct number of stitches to knit "down."

TECHnique #2:
If the trick of REMOVING an extra stitch going "up" doesn't grab you, here's another alternative which has you ADD an extra stitch going "down."

Provisionally cast on the correct number of stitches, and work all the stitches "up" normally. Unzip the provisional casting on, catch the live loops on your needle, and on the second or third row knitting "DOWN," add a stitch by the "invisible increase" method (click here for instructions).

To summarize this technique:

• Provisionally cast on the correct number of stitches
  
• Knit every stitch going "up"
  
• When you come to unzip the provisional casting on, you will find one fewer loops going "down."
  
• Pick up the stitches going "down" and knit for two rows.
  
• On the third row, add a stitch by making a nearly invisible increase.
  

Provisional cast on makes a 1/2 stitch discontinuity--a jog-- between where the stitches go "up" and where they go "down."

Not only is there always one fewer stitch going "down" than "up," but the offset between the tails and loops causes another problem, also. Specifically, when we knit "down" on the tail loops, the downward knitting is 1/2 stitch off the upward knitting.

Through an act of heavenly mercy, it turns out that stockinette is so symmetrical that this 1/2 stitch difference is very nearly undetectable in stocking stitch. To prove this is so, take any piece of stockinette fabric, look at it closely, then turn it upside down and look again. You will see that stockinette looks the same upside down and right side up. The only way you'll see the offset in stockinette is at the edge of the fabric, where the 1/2 stitch jog shows as a tiny bump on each side.

Other knit fabrics are not so forgiving. A continuous ribbed fabric would show a 1/2 stitch discontinuity between where the stitches are knit "up" and where the stitches are knit "down." To minimize this, provisional cast on is usually used along a border where the fabric pattern is going to change anyway: the classic location is at the border between the bottom band and the body of a sweater, or at the border between cuff and sleeve. Because the bottom band or cuff is likely to be made in ribbing, while the garment body or sleeve is likely to be made in a different pattern, the discontinuity -- the jog -- of the provisional pick-up line is disguised.


A quick aside: Do you wonder why you'd want to put the cuff on a sleeve via a provisional cast on? There are at least two good reasons to do it: 1. It makes it easy to replace the cuff, important for children's clothing. 2. It makes it easy to adjust the cuff length after the main garment has been knitted and can be tried on. You might want to put the bottom band on a sweater via the provisional cast on method for the same reason: picking up the bottom band and knitting it last would make it easy to adjust the final sweater length after the sweater body has been knit and can be tried on.

If you were making a garment with just one fabric pattern -- a pattern which would look bad with a jog -- you would have to arrange matters so that at the line of the provisional cast on, there would be several rows of pain stockinette stitch.

A common example is lacy scarf worked in a directional lace pattern. Specifically, in order to have the two lace patterns match at the lower ends of the scarf, you might want to start the scarf in the middle with a provisional cast on, and work first towards one end, and then towards the other. However, you might not want the 1/2 stitch jog to interfere with the continuity of your lace pattern. A classic solution is to design the scarf with a stockinette panel, as shown below.

Because the provisional cast on is in the middle of a stockinette fabric, there will be hardly any visible discontinuity where the provisional cast on lies--there will be a 1/2 stitch jog at the edges, but none in the middle of the fabric. Also, the shape of a scarf with a narrow stockinette pattern lies very well on the neck--the narrow bit goes around the back, adding no bulk behind the neck, while the pretty lace panels show in all their glory on the front. The best part about a scarf like this is that the narrow stockinette band has the same number of stitches as the lace panels--no increasing is required. The secret is that lace (pretty nearly any lace) is much wider than a stockinette fabric on the same number of stitches, due to all the yarn overs.

There is a scarf like this somewhere here at Chez TECH, but one of the little TECHlings has it hidden away. When found, a photograph of it will be added to this post...

(Some time later) Oh here it is!

--TECHknitter

You have been reading TECHknitting on: "Provisional cast on --one extra stitch going up, one less stitch going down; 1/2 stitch off in pattern"

Sigh...

As must be obvious, there is no tech editor at Chez TECHknitting. Accordingly, this blog sometimes gets disorganized. I thought we were heading for garment shaping, I've even knitted up a bunch of samples, but when it came time to write and illustrate all the tricks in the shaping, it turned out that there are still lots of techniques to cover first.

Accordingly, I've axed the previous post with its false promises about socks and garment shaping. Regardless of whatever was stated earlier, this blog simply hasn't progressed as far as garment shaping: not socks, not sweaters, not yet. Instead, for the foreseeable future, TECHknitting will be taking up the old torch again and concentrating on the TECHnique of making knitted fabric.  

Specifically, we'll start tomorrow with a post concerning provisional cast on--what to do about the fact that when you take out the provisional cast on, you'll have 1 less stitch heading "down" than you had heading "up."

Until tomorrow--

--TECHknitter

Sabbatical

Sabbatical-- Any extended period of leave from one's customary work, esp. for rest, to acquire new skills or training, etc. 

Hi All-I'm still here, but not a lot of blogging is happening (obviously).  The next topic is to be garment shaping, but it's such a large topic that it's hard to tell where to begin.  There have been several false starts, but no approach has yet proved satisfactory.  

In the meanwhile, however, it has been fun working on projects. There's been a knitting drought for several years at ChezTECH as the blog has been all-consuming.  Now it is as if a dam had burst, and I am churning out projects.  It is fun knitting with yarn again, rather than pixels.  

Evidently, TECHknitting is now officially on a sort of a sabbatical break--a substantial period of time off while my thoughts get reorganized and fresh energy is generated to post further.  Sorry to have been incommunicado for so long, but TECHkntting will be back--eventually--and I really hope to tackle garment shaping at that time. 

Thanks for your continued patience, and we'll hopefully meet again in the not-too-distant future.

--TECHknitter

Goodbye until September...

Dear Readers:

TECHknitting has come to that part of the year when summer travel shuts down the blog. This blog will be on summer vacation until the first week of September -- I am actually leaving the US for over a month, and will have no computer access during this time. (Guess I'll just have to knit -- darn!!)

Before the summer hiatus, however, TECHknitting will undergo its first real housecleaning since its founding. Between now and July 25, all the posts are to be re-examined, new links inserted where needed, and old links updated. Some illustrations will be replaced with corrected versions, and some nagging typos will be corrected. Also, all the indexes will be brought up to date.

If you subscribe to TECHknitting by way of an RSS feed (such as through Bloglines or Google Reader) you may see a flurry of activity that looks like lots of new posts, but this is just false signals being generated by re-posting corrected versions of previous entries. In other words, please ignore any "new post" messages: they are due to this upcoming period of maintenance. No new posts will be forthcoming until September.

Before we part ways for the rest of this summer, dear readers, I thank you for making TECHknitting a stop on your travels through the internet. We'll meet again in September, and when TECHknitting returns with new posts, the first topic will be PICKING UP STITCHES.

Have a good summer, and keep knitting!

P.S. One last thing: I will not be able to read comments, nor read or respond to e-mails at the TECHknitting@hotmail.com address between July 25 and September 7.

--TECHknitter

Matching 2 pieces of knitting without counting

click any illustration to enlarge
One of the most tedious routines in all of knitting is counting rows or stitches when you have to match two pieces. Is the sweater front as long as the back? Have you knitted both sleeves the same length? Are your two sock tops the same number of rows before the gusset starts? Here is a little trick to avoid all that endless counting and losing track and re-counting. Also, with this trick, you process both pieces at once (twice as fast!)

You will need:

• a small-gauge circular needle (or two small regular needles or dpn's)
• some safety pins or bobby pins
  

TO MATCH ROWS
without counting

In the illustrations below, two pieces of stockinette, one green and one purple, are being matched to make sure they have the same number of rows knitted. The illustrations all show the matching proceeding from right to left--the same way as knitting. However, there is no science to this--you can proceed from left to right just as well.

First, fold both pieces to be matched so that one column from each piece is just at the fold line, then hold the folded pieces pressed together. Pick the plainest possible columns in the work, a column with as few pattern complications as possible--ideal is a column of stockinette stitch in each item.

Per the illustration below, use one point of the circular needle to poke through both arms of the first stitch of the chosen column in the front piece (green), then poke the same needle through both arms of the first stitch of the chosen column in the back piece (purple). The first point (illustrated in black) is fully inserted under the first stitch in the folded column of the green fabric AND the first stitch of the folded column of the purple fabric.
With the second point of the circular needle (illustrated in yellow) poke through the next stitch along the row on the folded column of each piece. As shown below, you now have two needle points poking through two stitches on each of the two pieces of your work.
As shown by the red arrow in the illustration below, the next step will be to remove the black needle and poke it through the third stitch along the folded columns. In other words, you are going to leapfrog the first needle past the second--moving the black needle from the first stitch to the third stitch in the folded column of both pieces.
As shown below, you now again have two needles poking though the work. The reason I prefer a circular needle for matching is because it is harder to drop one needle as you do the leapfrogging part of the trick. However, if you do not have a small-gauge circular needle, small thin regular needles or dpn's will also work well.
As shown below, you continue in this manner, leapfrogging each needle one additional stitch up the folded columns, moving each needle in turn.
When you reach about 15 or 20 rows, run a safety pin (more secure) or a bobby pin (much, much faster) through a matched stitch. There is no particular science to the placement of the pin--the idea is to place pins often enough so that if you DO lose track, you don't have to go very far back to re-start the matching process.

When you get to the top of each column, you will easily see whether your two pieces match--does the last needle inserted go through the top stitch of each column, or does one column extend further? If so, either pull out the excess rows of the longer item, or knit extra rows on the shorter item.

IMHO,

• Matching is EASIER than counting--in both counting and matching you have to identify the next stitch but counting requires you to keep track the number of stitches, whereas matching does not. Obviously, you CAN count while matching--if you ARE counting, insert pins every 10 or 20 rows exactly to ease your double-check when you re-count--but the point is that with matching, you don't actually NEED to count--"losing count" is no impediment.
  
• Matching is FASTER than counting--because you are poking both items at once, it goes twice as fast as counting each item, one at a time.
  
• Finally, matching is MORE ACCURATE than counting because you are less likely to make a matching mistake than a counting mistake...

• matching is mechanical--easier to do in a distracting environment (TV anyone?)
• even when one needle is moved, the other one is pinning the work, making it harder to lose track
  
• placing pins make it easy to go back to double check--simply repeat the "poke-two-columns-at-once" procedure, and make sure all the pins are, in fact, inserted in matching rows of the folded columns
• matching by this poking method gives you a pointy tool in hand to explore any dubious stitches--helps avoid double counting one stitch or mis-identifying two stitches as one

If you have made beautiful, regular edges (by a chain selvedge or any other method) you can match along the edges, rather than along a folded column. However, experience dictates that in many cases, matching along a column is more accurate than along an edge, and this is especially true if there has been shaping along the edge.

TO MATCH STITCHES
without counting

The above illustrations and instructions show how to match length, row by row. The same procedure also works to match width, stitch by stitch (checking the width of two sleeves as they are increased, for example). Simply fold the two pieces so that there are two adjoining rows, then poke matching stitches along the row to count stitches.

--TECHknitter (You have been reading TECHknitting on: the easy way to match 2 pieces of knitting without counting)

Fully lining hats with polar fleece

click any illustration to enlarge
Lining handknit caps with polar fleece is a good trick to know. (Click here for further information about polar fleece.) Lining with polar fleece can make too-big hats fit, and it eliminates wool itchiness from sensitive foreheads.

TECHknitting blog has already shown how to line knitted hats with polar fleece headband style; today's post shows how to fully line a hat. Basically, with this trick, you make another hat of polar fleece, then sew that inside your knitted hat. With a lining in a heavy weight of fleece, the hat will be suitable for arctic expeditions--excellent where I live (Wisconsin)--but in more temperate climates, you may want to search out a thinner fleece for your lining so the hat won't be impossibly hot.

Step 1 (below): Polar fleece stretches more from selvedge to selvedge than along its length. Cut out a strip from the "wide" way on the fabric (as shown by the "direction of stretch" arrow). The strip should be approximately 10 or 11 inches high and 24 to 26 inches wide. This strip will become the inner lining hat.
Step 2 (below): Wrap the strip around the intended wearer's head with the "not-so-good" side facing out and pin it shut. It would be wise to wear the pinned strip around the house for some time--what seems comfortably snug on first pinning can come to feel ear-numbingly tight after extended wear.
Step 3 (below): Sew the tube shut as pinned. If you have a serger, use that. With a sewing machine you can sew a simple straight seam. If you are sewing by hand, use the back stitch.
Step 4 (below): Trim the excess from the seam. The illustration shows pinking shears, but you can trim with ordinary scissors. Polar fleece does not unravel, so you can trim closer than with woven cloth. An approximately 3/8 inch seam allowance is good, but bold souls can trim as close as 1/4 inch, while nervous sorts can trim to a standard 5/8 seam allowance. If you do have a sewing machine, you might wish to re-sew over the cut edge with the machine's zig-zag or overcast stitch, but this is not necessary.
Step 5 (below): Have the intended wearer try on the tube. Pull the tube down well over the forehead so that you don't accidentally make the lining too shallow. Pin shut the top of the tube so that it comfortably conforms to the shape of the wearer's head.
Step 6: Just as you sewed the back seam of the tube in step 3, so now you will sew the top of the tube shut. Let the actual sewing of the seam be approximately 1/2 inch above the pins, and this should allow plenty of wiggle room.

Step 7: Just as you trimmed the excess from the seam allowance in step 5, so you will trim the excess fabric from above the top seam. Use the same width of seam allowance as on the back of the tube--somewhere between 1/4 inch and 5/8 inch.

Step 8 (below): OPTIONAL Have the wearer try on the sewn-shut tube. At this point, if you like, you can adjust the shape of the tube to be more anatomically correct by flipping up the front of the hat until the tube sits comfortably on the head. Once the comfortable amount of front flip has been determined, mark the flip with a line of pins.
Step 9: If you did step 8, then in this step, you trim away the excess fabric from the front of the lining by trimming along the pinned line. You want to flip up and trim from the front, rather than the back so that you are not cutting through the back seam--cutting the back seam could possibly encourage that sewing in that seam to run out, while cutting in the front creates no problems at all. Remember, polar fleece fabric does not unravel.

Step 10 (below): You have now created a custom lining which will fit the wearer. At this point, you want to sew the lining into the hat. A polar fleece lining is sewn into a hat ONLY AT THE BOTTOM EDGE of the hat. There is no reason to sew it in along the top. By having the lining free-floating in the hat (attached only at the bottom edge) the hat will lay far smoother on the wearer's head than if the lining were attached at the top of the hat too.

Here is the how-to trick for pinning the lining evenly into a hat (or should I say--for pinning the HAT evenly inside the LINING!?)

Begin by turning the hat INSIDE OUT. Fit the lining OVER the hat, with the sewn seams of the
lining facing the inside of the hat. In other words,

• the hat will be encased, inside-out, inside of the lining
• the good side of the lining will be showing, and
• the not-so-good side of the lining (the side with the seams) will rest against the inside fabric of the hat.

Align the back seams.


(If you think you may have seen this diagram before, you have! This is the identical diagram from the post on headband-style lining, and, in fact, the two methods are the same!)


a: Holding the hat (gray shape) inside the lining (blue shape), S-T-R-E-T-C-H the hat and the lining with both forefingers into a long shape which can be stretched no further. This automatically centers the hat inside the lining. Pin the lining to the hat in these two spots.

Do you wonder how you can pin in the lining while your hands are inside the hat and band, stretching everything smooth? You can ask someone to help you, of course, but if you are alone, you can take a shortcut by pinning in one contact point BEFORE you start the stretching-out process, then pinch the hat and lining together where you find the second contact should go. Just be sure not to prick yourself with the pre-set pin, which would go right against one of your stretching fingers.

b. along one side, divide the length between the two pins in half by again stretching the hat and the lining until they can stretch no further. Pin this third contact point.

c. along the other side, repeat step b. Four points are now pinned.

d. again stretching between two contact points, set a fifth contact point at the half-way mark between two already-set pins.

e. repeat the "stretching to find the half-way point" 3 more times until a total of 8 contact points are securely pinned down.

f. the perfectionists among us may want to again halve each side length for a total of 16 contact points.

Do not be alarmed if the lining is larger than the hat OR if the hat is larger than the lining. Once you have sewn the lining in place, the hat and lining will fit one another very well. The larger item, whether hat or lining, is eased to the smaller one by means of stretching out the smaller item as you sew, stitch by stitch, with the pins in place to divide the sections equally so all the ease does not wind up in one big lump on one side of the finished hat.

Thus, a too-large hat can be eased onto a smaller lining by stretching the lining out as the hat is stitched to it. When the sewing is done, the excess fabric of the hat will be distributed in tiny little bite-size pieces all around the lining. As the lining is released from stretching--as it shrinks back to near its original shape--it will take the too-large hat with it. Similarly, hats made of heavily textured fabric (ribbing, cables) will "draw in" much more than the smooth lining. Accordingly, the hat must be gently stretched to fit the lining.

To explain in different words: "Ease as you sew" is sewing jargon for stretching the smaller item (whether hat or lining) to match the larger item (whether lining or hat) as you sew the two together. When you have sewn the garment and the lining together and you take your hand away, you will see that they both lay smoothly together, regardless of the fact that the smaller one has been stitched into a new, stretched position.

As to which stitch to use, you can follow these instructions for the overcast stitch. I highly recommend sewing linings into knit garments by hand, rather than by machine: the end result is nearly always nicer, and the hand-sewn overcast stitch allows for a flexible and comfortable connection between the lining and the hat.

--TECHknitter (You have been reading TECHknitting on: "How to line a knitted hat.")

Knitters have to eat, too (no-mess muffins)

Somehow, the recent lovely summer weather had put knitting out of mind. It may be heresy, but working with fiber has temporarily lost its appeal. Yet even when you put down your knitting, you still have to eat. Here is a recipe for no-mess banana muffins. There is hardly any clean-up and you can prepare ahead so you can pop these in the oven with very little delay.
The following recipe makes 12 standard size muffins.

Step 1: ZIPPER BAG

The trick to making these muffins no-mess is to use a zippered plastic bag.

step 2: GET READY

Put muffin papers (aka "baking cups") into your muffin pan and pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.

Step 3: MIX DRY INGREDIENTS

Into your zipper bag, put
*1 3/4 cups of flour (white is tastiest, whole wheat pastry flour is a good runner-up)
*1/3 or 1/2 cup of sugar (avoiding white sugar? substitute the same amount of maple syrup BUT add the syrup to the wet ingredient in step 4)
*2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
*1/4 teaspoon salt.
Seal the zipper, check the seal, then shake the bag until all dry ingredients are well-mixed.

step 4: BLEND WET INGREDIENTS

Into your blender, put
*1 banana (can be a super-ripe one you no longer care to eat)
*1 egg (vegan? substitute 3 oz tofu)
*1/2 cup milk (diary milk or soy milk, makes no difference)
*1/4 cup oil (avoiding oil? substitute 1/3 cup applesauce for the oil)
Whirl this mixture around until smooth. If substituting maple syrup for sugar, add the syrup in this step.

step 5: COMBINE WET and DRY INGREDIENTS

Open the zipper bag, pour the blender contents in, and re-seal bag, pressing out as much air as possible. Mash the mixture together, working the dry ingredients out of the corners. TIP: Radically reduce your clean-up time by taking a minute to fill the blender body 1/3 full of water, add a few drops of dish soap and run the blender at high speed until it fills with suds. Then, let the blender sit there soaking until you have the muffins in the oven.

Step 6: PARTIALLY FILL MUFFIN TINS

Work the muffin batter into the bottom the zipper bag by repeatedly drawing the bag between thumb and forefinger. When the mixture is at the bottom, open the zipper to allow in air. Reseal the zipper, test the seal, gather the top of the bag in your non-dominant hand and twist it several times, then tilt bag and squeeze gently so the air bubble is pressing the batter into one corner of the bag. With a scissors, cut the tip off the corner, lopping off about 3/4 inch along the long edge of the cut. Gently squeeze a small amount of batter into each of the muffin papers.

step 7: ADD YUMMIES

Lay the bag of batter aside, cut tip up, so it does not ooze batter onto the counter. Into the batter in the bottom of each muffin paper, press whatever yummies you think would be good--walnuts, pecans, raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried blueberries, diced dried apricots, whatever.

step 8: FINISH FILLING MUFFIN PAPERS and BAKE

Press equal amounts of the remaining batter into each muffin paper, then bake in a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees until done (about 12-15 minutes). If unsure, test with a cake tester or a toothpick. Let the muffins cool in the tin. If you insist on eating them hot, the bottom crusts will stick to the papers, but once cool, the papers can be drawn off without too much loss of muffin.

RECAP:

*Preheat oven to 400 degrees
*Line muffin tin with muffin papers (no need to grease them)

INGREDIENTS:
*1 3/4 cups of flour
*1/3 or 1/2 cup of sugar
*2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
*1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt.
*1 banana
*1 egg
*1/2 cup milk, adding a couple of tablespoons if either the banana or the egg is small.
*1/4 cup oil

OPTIONAL YUMMIES:
*chopped nuts, any kind
*raisins or dried fruit

METHOD:
* mix first 4 ingredients in a plastic zipper bag--these are the "dry ingredients"
*blend together banana, egg, milk, oil --these are the "wet ingredients"
*combine wet and dry ingredients in the zipper bag, exclude air from bag, then mash dry and wet ingredients together until fairly uniform
*work mixture to bottom of bag, open bag and let in a big air bubble, then reseal the bag
*cut one corner off zipper bag, and, using the zipper bag as a pastry bag, squeeze small amount of batter into each prepared muffin paper
*add optional ingredients (nuts, raisins, etc)
*finish filling muffin papers

*Bake at 400 degrees until tops are brown and cake tester comes out clean (12-15 minutes).
*Let cool for easiest unwrapping.

As you can imagine, it is possible to mix together the dry ingredients the night before, so all you have to do for breakfast muffins is pop the wet ingredients into the blender, then pour those into the bag in the AM. Heck, you can keep several ready-made bags of muffin mix in the pantry, so you can have muffins any time you like.

At clean-up time, your muffin pan isn't usually messy because you didn't grease the papers, and the squeezing trick helps avoid dribbling batter onto the tin. The zipper bag gets tossed. The blender is a very quick wash-up if, as soon as you empty the blender, you take a minute to fill the blender with a little water, a few drops of soap and then a quick whirl to fill the blender with soap suds. In fact, with this pre-soaking method, there is usually no wash up of the blender at all--just a rinse.

--Good appetite from TECHknitter (You have been reading TECHknitting on: "no mess muffins")