How to Knit Backward

Because I shared about purling backward last week, I thought it made sense to share how to knit backward this week.

This is actually easier and feels a little more natural, but it still takes practice to get going well. I still move my hands around a lot and shift the yarn around as I am working a lot more than I would if I were knitting in the standard way.

Knitting backward is super useful when you’re working on a small number of stitches and want to be able to work Stockinette Stitch without turning the work. Yes, that means no purling!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z_dfdeYCdk&w=550&h=400]

To do it, you put the left-hand needle through the first stitch through the back loop, take the yarn over the needle counter-clockwise from the back, then form the stitch in the usual way. Check the video for more details.

I have most commonly heard of people doing this when they knit entrelac, because you’re usually only working with a very few stitches at a time and through the course of a whole project it probably does get fast enough that it rivals turning and purling back for speed.

Have you ever knit backward? I’d love to know how you used it and if you like this technique.

Next Pattern:

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

the simple cinching method mentioned above
sewing the stitches together
three needle bind off
grafting
crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!

Next Pattern:

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