Picking up Stitches – Pick-up and Knit Technique

Many of us struggle with the finishing of our sweaters.  We can knit beautifully, cable like maniacs, fair isle fabulously, but fall down when finishing!

Part of finishing is thinking ahead, what do I need to do to make my sweater look fabulous when I am done?

1. think ahead – where do I want my increases and decreases to be?  Do I want them visible, a design detail or do I want them to be discreet?  Very few patterns tell you how or where to make your decreases especially; they usually just say decrease at the beginning of the row.  We have options here.
2. Why not decrease 1 or 2 stitches in the from the edge?  I always decrease in the from the edge, at least one or maybe two stitches.  This allows for a clean edge that is easy to seam or pick-up stitches from.
3. What works for decreasing also works for increasing – think ahead, plan your shapings.
4. Mirror your shapings – ie – K2tog on one side, SSK on the other – so that they balance each other and create the same effect on both sides.
5. Make sure that when you use Kf&b as your increase that the new stitch sits the same amount of stitches in from the edge on both sides – did you know that the new stitch always falls to the left with this increase?  You have to plan where to make your increases to make them balance.

So to get the finish for picking up your stitches you have to plan where to make your increases and decreases so that they don’t interfere with your pick-up.

I am going to show you how to pick-up and knit your stitches, you will be creating a new stitch at the same time as picking-up.  Picking up stitches for some means picking up an arm or part of a stitch and placing it on the needle – this technique quite often will distort our base stitches, making it harder to create a great pick-up edge.

Pick-up and Knit – (you are usually only working with one needle until the pick-up is complete) push the point of the right hand needle through the edge of the knitting, wrap the needle tip and pull the yarn through.  This will make a new stitch that will sit on the right hand needle

Picking up along the horizontal edge, or bind-off edge is easy; pick-up right below the edge, one stitch for one stitch.  Picking up along the vertical edge or curves edge is a little more difficult, there are ratios to consider.  Stitches are almost always shorter than they are wide.  It takes more rows than stitches to make an inch.  This is where your gauge swatch comes in handy – working with your gauge swatch you can figure out how many rows are in an inch and how many stitches – for example – if it takes 5 stitches to make an inch and 7 rows to make and inch – then you would pick-up and knit 5 stitches for every 7 rows that you have knit along your vertical edge.  A possible sequence would be Pick-up and knit 2 from 2 rows, skip 1 row, pick-up and knit 3 stitches from the next 3 rows and then skip another row – 5 stitches created for 7 rows.

If you don’t have a gauge swatch handy – a good average to work with for most mid-weight sweaters is pick-up 4 stitches from 4 rows and then skip 1 row.

This ratio will usually work for all but the finest or heaviest of gauges.

Don’t be nervous about picking up extra stitches, sometimes it is necessary to help close possible holes, they can be discreetly removed by a well placed K2tog.

Finishing is tedious, time consuming, and absolutely essential to the final appearance of our hard work.  Knitting our sweaters took time and effort, finishing it properly will showcase our work and is worth the time it takes.  Take the Time!

Happy Knitting!

Lynette