Small bobbles are a nice way to add that extra little ‘pop’ to your garment. They can also be used for small buttons
Knit into the front, then back, then front again of the stitch on the left hand needle. This gives you three stitches from 1 stitch. Turn and knit these 3 stitches. Turn and knit these 3 stitches again. Turn and knit these 3 stitches one more time (you have knit them all 3 times). Turn and slip 1, knit 2 together, pass the slipped stitch over. You are now back to 1 stitch from 3 stitches.
also written as …
Knit into front, then back, then front again of st on LHN (3 sts from 1 st). [ Turn and knit these 3 sts] 3 times then turn and slip 1, k2tog, psso (1 st from 3 sts).
Intarsia is used when you are making blocks of color over several rows. It is good for representative (picture) knitting, as well as geometric shapes which don’t repeat on a small scale, such as argyle sock diamonds.
Each color block requires it’s own bobbin of yarn. From either the back or the front, the intarsia block is clearly visible
Intarsia is worked by keeping the colors separate from each other rather than carrying the unused color to the back of the work as in stranded knitting. This requires that you twist the yarn at the joins in order to prevent holes from occurring.
Prepare for knitting by winding off a small amount of yarn for each color area ahead of time. As a guideline, wrap the yarn around the needle once for every stitch in the block, then add another foot of yarn. Wrap this yarn on bobbins. For larger areas, you can use a small ball of yarn.
To keep the knitting smooth across color changes and avoid holes, keep these two rules in mind:
- When the change occurs at or before the color in the previous row, you must be sure and pick up the new color from underneath the color currently being worked. This will twist the yarns around each other.
- If the change occurs after the change in the previous row, you can simply drop the current yarn and pick up the new color without twisting.
Mosaic is used for special kinds of repeating patterns and takes two passes to complete a row.
It uses slipped stitches to “ignore” some stitches, then on the return pass, knits (or purls) those stitches in a second color, thus creating the color work pattern. The pattern is clearly visible from either side (with different texture)
Slipped Stitches are similar to mosaic, but can be done in many varying stitch (knit/purl) patterns.
Altering the number of colors used and the texture of the stitch patterns, and combining these with slipped stitches can produce a great variety of overall color effects.
This decorative seam technique can be used on both crochet pieces and knit pieces. It is accomplished by working loops at the edge of two pieces together using a crochet hook. The loops can be created using one of the following methods:
- In knitted fabric, dropping edge stitches
- Picking up stitches along an edge of any kind of fabric
With either method of creating the loops you should ensure that you have the same number of loops on each piece to be joined.
The traditional afghan seam is used on the edge of knitted fabric by first dropping one or two edge stitches from the edges of the knitted fabric to be joined. This leaves loops along the edge that are used alternately.
Starting with an anchor loop or the first loop from one side, Repeat the following two steps as many times as necessary to complete the seam:
- pick up a loop from one side and pull it through the loop on the crochet hook.
- pick up a loop from the opposite side and pull it through the loop on the crochet hook.
Secure the final stitch.
Modified Afghan seam
The modified afghan seam is used when stitches have been picked up from the fabric and are held on holders. In this case, the holders are two circular needles, each long enough to hold all of the stitches of one side of the seam. The general steps follow:
- Pick up as if to knit the indicated number of stitches along one side of the seam and place on first needle.
- Count the number of stitches on the first needle
- Pick up the same number of stitches along second seam edge and place them on the second needle.
- Hold the needles with the wrong sides of the fabric together
- If there is adjoining fabric, pick up an anchor stitch from the adjoining fabric and place on the crochet hook, otherwise, make one chain stitch and use it as the anchor stitch.
- Repeat the following two steps as many times as necessary to complete the seam:
- pick up a stitch from the first needle and pull it through the loop on the crochet hook
- pick up a stitch from the second needle and pull it through the loop on the crochet hook
- Secure the final stitch by attaching it to the adjoining fabric or pulling the end of the yarn through the last loop