An Easy Way to Rip Back Your Knitting

I’m a big fan of using lifelines when knitting lace, but there are times when you need to rip back regular knitting and you might have a bit of paranoia related to having a stitch (or a bunch) drop past where you want to stop ripping.

If you’re worried about that, first you should know that if you’re knitting with wool it probably won’t be a problem. Second you should know that you can make a spare needle into a sort of lifeline after the fact by running it through the legs of the stitches on whatever row you’d like to rip back to so that you can easily hold the stitches without having any of them wander farther than you’d like.

Check out exactly how to do this over on the WEBS blog.

[Photo via WEBS.]

If you need to rip back your knitting due to a mistake, it can be difficult to properly grab the live stitches and place them back on your needle.

One way to ensure that the stitches don’t unravel is to pick them up before ripping back.

For stockinette stitch, locate the row below the one you want to begin re-knitting on.

Insert your needle under the first strand of yarn in the V-shape of the first stitch on the right side, continuing down the row and picking up the first strand of yarn in each V while skipping the second leg.

In garter stitch, the same process applies, but you will be inserting your needle into the first leg of the V in the bumps of the garter stitch.

Once you have your needle inserted all the way down the row, you can pull the working yarn to rip back the rows above the needle and the stitches will be ready to use on your needle.

Remember to use a smaller needle for picking up the stitches and switch back to the original size when you start knitting again.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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