How to Add Duplicate Stitch to Knitting Patterns

I write these posts up to a month in advance, so I hope by the time this post goes live it won’t be a lie to say I recently finished what was probably the most intense knitting experience of my life so far (at least in terms of an individual project; books are way more intense): knitting an argyle vest.

(As I write, I just need to sew the pieces together and finish the armholes and neckline, so it’s definitely possible it will be done by the time you read this!)

This project was a challenge for a lot of reasons: the pattern wasn’t well written, my gauge was a little off so I sort of worked parts of a couple of different sizes (plus eliminating most of the waist shaping and making it longer), I had for most of the body 14 strands of yarn so I could do the intarsia diamonds.

And once the knitting was finally done, I had to do a ton of duplicate stitch to make the second part of the diamond pattern.

Mistakes aside it looks amazing, and I’m super proud of it. One of my goals for the year was to do some projects using skills I’ve never done before, and an intarsia project of this scale was definitely something I’ve always wanted to do (proof: I’ve had this yarn, the exact yarn and colors used for this project in the book I got it from, since 2008).

But it also gave me a great opportunity to write up a tutorial on how to do duplicate stitch, which is useful for so much more than making diamond shapes. It’s great for fixing mistakes in colorwork, adding little details like facial features or a small area of color you wouldn’t want to work while you’re knitting. You can also use it for bigger motifs, say, if you don’t want to do intarsia but want to add a design you can’t do with stranded knitting. Say you wanted a big heart on a hat worked in the round, which wouldn’t be easy to do as stranded knitting or intarsia. Duplicate stitch to the rescue!

If this is a technique you’ve used before, I’d love to hear how you used it and if you have any tips. And if it’s new to you head over to Our Daily Craft to see how its done.

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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