Tuesday, December 19, 2006

My UnWrapped Short Row Technique - Circular Knitting

I wrote up this techinque well over a year ago, and posted it at a knitting board. For some reason it occured to me today that I should post it on my blog too. So here it is, the never fail, no gaps, not fussy, easy as pie, short row wrap technique. It combines all the best of the wrapped technique and the Japanese short row technique without the typical gaps of the first and the fiddly pin business of the second. It's fast, it's easy and it just plain works!

This tutorial is written for those who are knitting circularly and will knit in both wrapped stitches from the right side. If you're knitting flat, see the Flat Knitting UnWrapped Short Row tutorial.
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I've been playing around with how I handle the wrapped stitches of short rows. (Can you believe someone else is bringing it up again????) Anyway, I've found a great way to hide that second wrap - so much so that the wraps are pretty much invisible even on the back side. I discovered it by accident and have been using it ever since.It's never failed me, and I want to know if it will work for others, too. So try it and tell me what kind of results you get! I think it's pretty easy to do, too!


UnWrapped Short Row Tutorial

As you work your short rows, wrap the stitch as normal. When you get to your first wrap:


You have now knit back to your FIRST wrap:




1.) Slip the wrapped stitch off the Left needle & gently pull the wrap off the stitch. (I use my right needle to do this.)



2.) Place the original stitch back on the Left needle. Place the wrap on the Left needle as well.



3.)Knit the wrap and the original stitch as one stitch. (Like K2Tog)



I've found that it really doesn't make a difference how you slip the wrap onto the needle - it becomes invisible by the next round. In this picture of the backside of the wrap, the wrap is really loose, so you can see it. Normally, it's virtually invisible.


Knit as usual until you reach your second wrap. For the SECOND wrap:


This is worked the same way, except you reverse the position of the wrap and the original stitch.



1.) Slip the wrapped stitch off the Left needle & gently pull the wrap off the stitch. (I use my right needle to do this.)



2.) Place the original stitch on the Left needle. Then place the wrap on the Left needle After the original stitch. (This reverses the original order of the stitch and wrap.) Simply pull the wrap untwisted across the back of the work.



The original stitch and the wrap back on the Left needle.



3.)Knit the wrap and the original stitch as one stitch. (Like K2Tog)



The backside of the second wrap. Original stitch in blue, wrap in orange.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just came here from the Knittyboard - what a GREAT idea! I think I've been doing short-rows correctly but I've never been entirely happy with them... I will have to try your method. Thanks for the clear description and pictures!

Anonymous said...

Can you explain why the 2nd wrapped st needs to be unwrapped differently? What about the 3rd one? Thank you

Katie, a dyer at Yarn Love said...

You unwrap them differently, because the original stitches are wrapped in different directions. One wrap is wrapped from right to left (This is the first wrap you made, but the second that you encounter when knitting circularly.) and the second wrap is wrapped from left to right (This is the second wrap you made, but the first you encounter on the next round.) The main thing that needs to happen when you come to the wrap, is that you knit the original stitch and the wrap with the wrap behind the original stitch on the right side of the fabric.

As you come to subsequent wraps, all the odd number wraps should be unwrapped and knit the same way, and the same way for the even wraps. So you will unwrap and knit the third wrap the same way you did the first, and the fourth wrap the same as the second.

Unknown said...

YAY!!!! Thanks for posting this! I've looked and looked for instructions on how to do the short rows in the round without leaving a big, ugly hole afterwards. Your method worked like a charm and was super easy to follow!!!!!

Sarah Clough said...

Thanks so much for this! I found it through Ravelry. I was having a similar problem with holes on short rows on circular needles. I learnt short rows from the Cat Bhordi video on YouTube, but couldn't find any info on applying it to circular needles. I knitted a curly snake recently and thought i'd figured it out by the end. I've just started a new project and knitting a latter 'o', and have ended up with holes on one side, whether it's because the 'o' is a smaller diameter or not I'm not sure, or because I didn't look at the snake closely all round once it was stuffed, but whatever way I knitted the wrap together I got a hole. I've actually left it as a feature now as it goes all the way round the 'o', but want to fix it on the next letter. It's actually not the WS side wrap I'm having trouble with, I seem to have worked that one out by myself, but bizarrely my RS wrap was going wrong! This tutorial is a little different to the Bhordi method so I'll try it and see, but it makes perfect sense in my head. It describes what you're trying to achieve in the comments too which is very helpful so I can use my brain to apply that.

Sarah

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