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.

Next Pattern:

While I was knitting this baby blanket, my husband was curious as to why I was knitting a baby blanket when there are no babies in the near future that we know of. (What we know is kind of relative since some friends told us they were adopting a couple of years ago with less than a month’s notice.)

I said, “well, I had the yarn.” Which is true. I bought a ball of Bernat Sport Ombre Twist yarn when JoAnn was closing and it seemed like just the thing to make a baby blanket.

And at more than 1,000 yards per skein, I figured a one-skein baby blanket would be a fun project to try.

It actually worked out perfectly, with the blanket coming out a good size. With the border it’s 36 inches/91.4 cm square, which is what I’m usually aiming for when I knit baby blankets but I rarely hit it because I also rarely check gauge for a baby blanket since it’s usable whatever size it is.

I had enough yarn to work the blanket and two rounds of single crochet as a border, with a few yards of yarn to spare.

If you don’t crochet you can leave off the border or do an applied I-cord or some kind of knit border, but you might need to use a contrasting yarn for that.

The blanket uses sand stitch, which is an easy knitting stitch that only uses knits and purls. It’s sort of stockinette on one side and alternating knits and purls on the other. There’s some debate as to which side of this stitch pattern is considered the front, but the good news is they both look good.

You can grab this free pattern over at Our Daily Craft. Stitch it up even if you don’t know of any babies coming soon. You never know, and it can always be a charity project if all else fails.

Next Pattern:

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