The Knitting Fiend

Fall will soon be here and I'm finally picking up stitches for the button bands on Jim's sweater, which I have neglected since the weather turned hot.

As people who visit my blog already suspect, I'm not using a published patterns, So my first step was to calculate how to pick up the stitches. I consulted my records and found the stitch and row gauge in stockinette these were 3.77 st/inch and 5.18 row/inch respectively. Since sweater is knit from the bottom up, the edge has a certain number of rows, and I will pick up stitches for the band.

I could calculate exactly how may stitches to pick up, but since I am using ribbing which is very elastic, I prefer to be more approximate. So, I calculate as follows:

You might wonder: Why don't I account for the smaller stitch gauge of ribbing knit on smaller needles? Because over time, edges tend to flare. In my experience, when ribbed bands are applied to stockinette, it's best just to calculate using the stockinette gauge. When I design using fancy stitch patterns, or fancy border patterns, I practice knitting the band on a swatch. If my first guess doesn't work, I rip and redo.

Next, I actually pick up the stitches. First, notice that for my case, I pick up 3 stitches for every 4 rows; so I pick a stitch from the first three rows, skip 1, then I just repeat.

Many knitting books illustrate picking up the stitches with a single needle. I must not be sufficiently coordinated, because I find I need to use two. I find two double pointed (or sock) needles with one or two diameter sizes finer than I plan to use to knit the band. I find using fine needles simplifies inserting the tip into the stitch gaps; it also makes the pick up row very short and less noticeable.

I pull on the edge to identify the gap between the edge stitch and second stitch from the edge as illustrated above and to the left. I then insert the helper needle into the same hole, yarn over to knit and knit up a stitch.

I repeat picking up stitches in each row, being careful to always insert 1 stitch in from the edge. It's also possible to pick up between 1/2 the edge stitch and the second stitch; whatever you do, you must do it consistently or the picked up edge will look unattractive.

If you examine the photo carefully, notice, I did not slip the first stitch on the band edge. I often slip edge stitches the edge will show, but rarely do so if I plan to pick up stitches later. I find slipping stitches makes it difficult to pick up more than 5 stitches out of 10.

Clever knitters, have of course realized that my double pointed needle must be much shorter than my edge. That is true. As I pick up stitches, I periodically pause to transfer the stitches to my trusty Denise circular needles with the size tip I plan to use to knit the band.

When I finish picking up stitches for the first band, I count stitches. I record these, and make sure I pick up the same number of stitches when I knit the second band.

I also do a couple of "persnickety" things when knitting the band. When I knit in 1 x 1 rib, I organize my knitting to make sure the two stitches at the hem facing are knit when the public side of the garment. That's because I think ending with two knit stitches looks prettier than ending with 1 knit stitch. I also slip the first stitch at the hem edge when the public side of the garment is facing me; I don't slip stitches when beginning the row at the collar edge. That's because I always pick the collar stitches up after knitting the button band. I want the hem edge to have the nice chain like appearance you get from slipping; I want the collar edge to have enough space to pick up stitches.