The Knitting Fiend

I finished knitting the gusset for my second toe up sock. I used “lift 1″ (L1) type increases because this type of increase leaves no hole or bump.

You many not have run across this increase because many pattern writers like to specify “make 1″ (M1) type increases. I sometimes knit M1s, but rarely. I find, no matter what tricks I use, my M1s leave a tiny hole that becomes discernible when the knitting is pulled — as it always is on a tightly fitted sock!

I suspect some readers are wondering whether there are disadvantages to using L1 increases rather than M1. In my opinion, there are no disadvantages for the knitter; I think working L1 type increases is quicker and easier than working M1s. (In fact, I find them so much easier, I will often just use substitute an L1 when the pattern designer suggests and M1!)

But, I have to admit, there is a disadvantage for the pattern writer! When you tell a knitter to use L1’s, you often need to specify the “type” of L1, because there are two. That means, the pattern writer needs to remember which type they used where. Later when proof reading, the pattern writer must pause the “re-think” to make sure they didn’t make a mystake. The pattern writer also needs to provide a longer abbreviations list, which printers hate. ( I’m not aware of any standard abbreviation to distinguish the two, so I call these “L1A” , to mean Lift one after knitting a stitch, and “L1B”, for Lift one before knitting a stitch.)

So, strangely enough, when writing a pattern, I will sometimes specify M1s and later knit L1s! I do this when I don’t care if you use an L1A or an L1B.

My reason? After really lecturing the knitter on using the correct type of L1 for a particular applicatoin, I don’t want to the say just “L1″ and have them ask me “which type”. I also don’t want to write “L1WETHTYWTU” (L1 WhatEverTheHeckTypeYouWantToUSE.) When either type of L1 will do intended, you can nearly always substitute “M1″ or “kfb” (knit front and back.)

Now that I’ve gone on and on about L1s, I’ll describe how I used both types to knit the gusset using the magic loop method. I distributed stitches so the instep stitches were knit during the first half of the round. Then I performed a “magic turn” and began knitting the sole stitches, which were on the second half of the round.

I knit two stitches. Then, I worked an “L1A” by inserting the needle tip to pick up the left leg of the stitch two below the one I just knit up. (The one I just knit up is now on the right hand tip; so when counting, I count that as zero; I count the one I knit into as one, and I knit into the one below that. ) I finished the L1 by wrapping the yarn and knitting through.

Above right, the photo shows how the tip is inserted, the yarn is wrapped and ready to knit through. I think of this as “Lifting” after working a stitch.

Since this is a gusset on one side of the sole, I knit nearly all the stitches on the second half of the round, stopping when two stitches remained. Then, I worked a “L1B” by inserting the needle tip into the left leg of the stitch one below the one on the left needle tip. (See below left.) I then insert the left tip, wrap the yarn and knit into the this the loop I just created. I think of this as working an L1 before working a stitch. I finished the round by knitting the remaining two stitches.

To continue the gusset, I then knit a plain round with no increases. Afterwards, I alternated increase rounds and plain rounds until the gusset was complete. As the gusset forms, you’ll see the stitches seem to “grow to the left” out of a single column on the right and “grow to the right” out of a single column on the right.

I think this looks just the way a gusset should look! The reason I love L1As and L1Bs is they make it possible to organize a variety of decorative increases. The key is to carefully decide when to work the “L1B”, when to work the “L1A” and decide how many stitches to work between the two decreases. For other nice looking uses of lifted increases seen “paired raglan increases”.

In case you’re wondering, I think the second sock is coming along great! I’ll be illustrating the heel turn next.