How to Get a Neater Edge on Your Knitting

If you’re looking to refine your knitting techniques in the new year, or you’re new to knitting and wondering why your edges look so weird, you might enjoy this deep dive into edge stitches, why they look that way and what to do about it.

The truth is that your edge stitches are pretty much always going to look a little different from the stitches on the inside of your knit fabric. That’s just because of the way knit fabric is structured — all the other stitches have support on both sides, which helps even out the tension, but edge stitches don’t have that.

Also it’s super easy to change your tension on that last (or first) stitch, to pull too tight because you think it will make them look more even, or to leave it loose because of the way you’re making the stitch.

Nimble Needles dives into all of this in detail, showing exactly how those edge stitches can get wonky and how they often don’t look perfect even when you’re trying really hard to make sure they have the same tension as the other stitches in the project.

So what do we do about it? You’ll have to visit the blog post for all the details, but the answer is working selvedge stitches or slipped stitches at the edges of the work. This takes some experimentation to determine the method that works for you (and honestly a lot of practice to remember to do it consistently, which is probably why I don’t do it, because I just don’t remember to) but it does make a nice edge if the more organic look isn’t something you like.

You can find all the details at Nimble Needles.

Do you work the edge stitches any special way when you knit something flat? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: Nimble Needles]

Five Fun Ways to Finish Your Knit Edges

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a sweater knitting pattern that uses up some of your stash and allows you to make just the sweater you want, the Marlina Rib by Shay Johson might be just the thing.

It’s worked with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together to make a DK weight gauge, so you can use the same two yarns throughout or change one or both regularly for an even more colorful look.

The pattern has options to make it either a crewneck or a henley style with buttons, tapered or relaxed sleeves, and a straight hemline or a split hem with buttons (which sounds so cute if you do the henley with split hem and match the buttons on both parts).

It’s also knit from the top down so you can make the body and the sleeves as long as you want. There are 10 sizes available in the pattern, with a chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 81.5 to 172.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 4-6 inches/10-15 cm of positive ease at the chest.

The pattern page on Ravelry includes tons of measurements and yardage estimates so you can make sure you’ll get a good fit for your body before you even buy the pattern. Shay also shows a few variations of the sweater so you can see how different options look before you decide how you want to put them together.

The stitch pattern is 1×2 ribbing, which is really easy to do and gives a look almost like fisherman’s rib that’s relaxed and easy to wear.

This sweater looks like a great option for people who are somewhat new to sweater knitting or those who love to have lots of customization options (because it’s like getting multiple sweater patterns in one!).

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern for yourself at Ravelry.

[Photo: Shay Johnson]

Next Pattern:

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