In some patterns, you may be told to slip the first stitch of each row so that you have a nice pretty edge on your work. This is all fine and dandy. But what about when you’re going to be picking up stitches from the slipped stitches? How do you know where to pick up from?
In this tutorial, I’ll show you where and how to pick up stitches. This method is what I use in my Through the Woods Hood. I hope you find this photo tutorial helpful! Let’s get started…
So here is a piece of fabric (above) where the first stitch of every row was slipped purlwise and the last stitch of every row is worked as normal. This is done on both RS and WS rows. Because of this, we find that the first edge stitch of every row is nice and loose because it was slipped and the last stitch of every row is worked as normal so that stitch appears much tighter. This makes it difficult to determine where to pick up our stitches. See below.
So, when picking up stitches, we’ll be doing so in one of the legs of the stitch right NEXT to the slipped stitch. Don’t worry it’ll all make sense in a moment!
Now, for this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to pick up stitches from both the right side edge and the left side edge. Since the slipped stitches are going opposite directions depending on which direction you’re picking up the stitches from.
First, I’ll show you how to pick up from slipped stitches that are at the END of the rows (left side edge):
Below, you can see the rows of knit stitches just to the left of the slipped stitches. I’ve inserted my needle through both legs of the “V”.
So, when we pick up our stitches to knit, we’ll only be inserting our needle through the right leg of the “V” of each stitch. See below.
We will then YO our needle and pull up a loop through that leg. (See below)
Repeat in the next stitch (or rather, row) over (to the left). See below.
Now, if we turn our work to the WS, we can see that our picked up stitches are just to the right of our “V”s.
So this shows us that we picked up from the correct spot and the front of our work looks great, with the pretty chain of slipped stitches and ONLY those slipped stitches showing. See below.
Now, as for picking up from slipped stitches that are at the BEGINNING of the rows (right side edge): In the photo below, the cast on edge is to the right. (In my Through the Woods pattern, the cast-on edge has already been seamed at this point.)
If we tilt our fabric WS towards us, we’ll see the stitches just to the right of the slipped stitches (that pretty chain). See below.
I’ve rotated the piece here (below) so that you can better see the rows of stitches just to the right of the slipped ones. They appear on the far left (on the WS of work) and look like little “V’s. One on top of the other.
Now, we’ll be inserting our RHN tip into the left “leg” of one of those “V”s to pick up our stitches. (See below)
We will then YO our needle and pull up a loop through that leg. (See below)
We now have one PU&knit on our needle. (See below)
We will repeat that in the left leg of the next stitch over (or row, as it were). See below.
YO needle and pull up another loop. See below.
Continue this way for however many stitches that your pattern tells you to pick up. Some patterns may tell you how many to pick up and then skip a stitch (or row) and then pick up another number of stitches. (In my Through the Woods pattern, you’ll just be picking up from every single stitch (or rather, row).
If you take a look at the back of your picked up stitches (see below), you’ll see that we are indeed picking up from the left “leg” only of these stitches. This will ensure that from the RS of our work, we only see the slipped stitches (pretty chain), and not the slipped stitches along with a half of another stitch. (not pretty!)
See how pretty that looks!
Now you know how to pick up and knit stitches from stitches that are slipped! I hope you enjoy incorporating this technique into some of your knitting projects.
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