How to Pick Up Stitches for Knitting

Last month I told you a bit about the continuing saga of me knitting an argyle vest, which has given me lots of opportunities for writing tutorials about different skills that were used in making it.

That particular post was about duplicate stitch, which is essential for making the diagonal lines that are what makes it look like argyle.

It also gave me a chance to write about picking up stitches, because it had just about every scenario in which you might need to pick up stitches in one place.

But before that, have you checked out the post on Circular Knitting Machine FAQs?

The vest has a deep scoop neck, so there were places to pick up stitches that were straight horizontal (bound off edge at the bottom of the neckline), straight vertical along the sides and along a curve/diagonal in between.

I go into a lot more detail in the post about how to actually go about picking up all these stitches in different locations, but there are a couple of main things you should know if you need to pick up a lot of stitches for a project.

First: if you’re picking up a lot of stitches, add some locking stitch markers, at least to divide the area in half if not in quarters or more. This will help you make sure you’re picking up the right number of stitches in each section, so if you’re wildly off you can just rip out a little bit and try again.

Second: stitch counts in patterns are not magic. It’s not the end of the world if you’re off by a few in either direction, so long as you have the stitch multiple needed to complete the edging. You can always increase or decrease a couple of stitches in the first round if you need to. No one is going to count, and as long as the edge lies flat (or looks the way it’s supposed to) when you’re done it’s totally fine.

Check out all the tips for picking up stitches at Our Daily Craft.

Next Pattern:

One great thing to knit when the weather is warm (or honestly any other time) is dishcloths and washcloths. They are fun and easy projects and a great way to play with new skills. Pretty washcloths make cleaning a tiny bit more fun, and they’re great to have on hand as a quick addition to a store-bought gift.

The Daisy Delight Dishcloth from Yarnspirations is a fun one for using leftover bits of green in your cotton yarn stash. What looks like the bottom in the picture is actually the left side as you knit it, and each little color section is worked with its own ball of yarn, intarsia style.

That’s a little fiddly for a washcloth, but the effect is cute, and it’s a simple way to learn the basics of intarsia knitting (as well as reading a chart) if you don’t already have those skills.

One the knitting is done, you add the flowers with a bit of lazy daisy embroidery, which is really easy to do even if you’re not that into embroidery. You could also potentially add flowers in duplicate stitch if you’d rather.

This may be the most work you’ve put into a dishcloth, but isn’t it adorable? It would be fun to use as a hand towel through the spring and summer, and if you already have some leftover green yarn from other projects it should be pretty easy to do.

You could also take this same concept and make it different colors. All dark green stems with stars on top might be reminiscent of Christmas trees, or brown with daisy stitch on top in different colors could be trees in the fall.

However you stitch it, this looks like a fun little project for knitters who are comfortable with intarsia and reading charts or who are ready to try those skills.

You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

Book Review – Dishcloths for Special Days [Knitting]

Book Review – Holiday Knit Dishcloths

Next Pattern:

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