The Knitting Fiend

Mary wrote asking:

What does it mean to miss stitches? How can that be done? Or no stitch. I am seeing this in a chart and my vogue knitting “bible” doesn’t say anything about this either.

Believe it or not “what is no stitch” is a very very, very common question. The answer is: do nothing; pretend those grid boxes do not exist. Seriously. Ignore those boxes.

Yes, strangely enough, “no stitch” means “no stitch”! This is why you will never find this stitch explained in any stitch bible!

But, if that’s all “no stitch” means, why does the question arise often? Well, it’s because the term only arises when relatively complicated stitch patterns like lace or complicated Aran work. The term only arises when the stitch pattern are charted. More importantly, the pattern writers for those patterns always assume the advanced-intermediate knitter already knows that the terms honestly means “no stitch”. (How one is to learn it for the first time is beyond me, but there you go!)

Anyway, every time someone asks me this, they are still confused when I say “it means no stitch”. In person, I just show them. But Mary contacted me by email, so I had her send me a chart and the legend. Now I’ll use that as an example to explain. I cut out the bit of the chart that involves the “no stitch” bits, and show it with its corresponding legend below. Note that chart 1 shows the odd rows only. On even rows, you are to work stitches as they present themselves.

If you examine both figures, you’ll notice square boxes indicating “no stitch, just miss the stitch” appear in rows 1,3, 5, 33 and 35. I’ll explain how to work rows 1-6 and then describe rows 33 and 35 because those are the rows that involve “no stitch”.

Now, for some preliminaries.

First, notice there are 16 grid boxes in each row. Normally, 16 grid boxes means there are 16 stitches on the needle. That will be true when knitting most rows in this pattern. However, it’s not true for rows 1-6 and 33-36! These rows will involve “no stitch”.

Next notice there are 4 “no stitches” indicated in row 1. That means there will be 12 stitches on the needle before you knit row 1. (That’s 16-4.)

Now, let’s translate row 1 into text. Note that row 1 is a right side facing row, so we will read the chart right to left.

Row 1: k2, p2, p6, k2. (Notice how I just skipped the ‘no stitch’ symbols between the p2 and the p6? No stitch quite literally means “pretend these boxes aren’t here”. )
Row 2: p2, k6, k2, p2. (This is “knitting knits and purling purls”, or “knitting as they present themselves” or “knitting as set”.)

Row 3: k2, p2, ‘with left hand needle pick up the p loop of the row under the stitch just worked (on right side) and k’, ‘with right hand needle pick up the p loop of the row under the stitch just worked (on right side) and knit’, p6, k2. (Note: there are now 14 stitches on the needle. When you picked up the purl loops and knit, you worked an increase. )
Row 4: p2, k6, p2, k2, p2. (Note: The blue font indicates the stitches you created when working row 3.)

Row 5: k2, p2, k1, ‘with left hand needle pick up the p loop of the row under the stitch just worked (on wrong side) and k’, ‘with right hand needle pick up the p loop of the row under the stitch just worked (on wrong side) and knit’, k1, p6,k2. (Note: there are now 16 stitches on the needle. When you picked up the purl loops and knit, you worked an increase. )
Row 6: p2, k6, p4, k2, p2.

Ok, so now that you read instructions for 1-6, can you see how “no stitch” really, truly means “do nothing”, or “pretend these grid boxes weren’t here”, or quite literally “there is no stitch associated with this grid box.” Just pretend those boxes are blank.

Between row 6 and 33 there are a whole bunch of cable crossings. These do not involve the concept of “no stitch” so I’ll just skip describing those rows. In row 33 “no stitch” suddenly reappears.

At the beginning of row 33, there are 16 stitches on the needle. Now you do this:

Row 33: k2, p4, k2, (sl1 knitwise, k1, psso), k2 tog, p2, k2. (Note: You now have 14 stitches on the needle. the k2tog decreased a stitch and the (sl1, k1, psso) also decreased a stitch. )
Row 34: Knit stitches as they present themselves.

Row 35: p2, k5, (sl1 knitwise, k1, psso), k2 tog, k1, p2. (You know have 12 stitches on the needle.)
Row 36: Knit stitches as they present themselves.

Notice that rows 33 and 35 reduced stitches down to the number at the beginning of row 3. The way the graph is shown you will repeat rows 3-36. Row 1&2 were set up rows.

I hope this helps!