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 don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

Next Pattern:

Have you read?