Eyelets on my central spine

Hi,

This is really a two part question. I’ve been practicing my eyelets and I always have a bit of yarn leftover that sags or droops, where the eyelet should be. The eyelets end up looking a bit of a state, and not like the neat holes I see in pattern books. My second problem, also to do with eyelets, is when I do them on a central spine. My eyelets on the spine end up veering off to the sides, go left and right and don’t stay in the center. I was told the knit stitch in the center will keep the eyelets tight and where they are supposed to be. I would appreciate some advice, as these solutions will lend themselves to others. Thanks so much.

Here’s a video for a typical yarn over between knit sts just to make sure we’re talking about the same stitch. (The knit sts aren’t part of the yarn over, just where it’s occurring.)


Here’s a video for working yarn overs involving purl sts.

Is that the way you’re working a yarn over to get an eyelet or something else? Can you post a photo to show us what’s happening to your eyelets?

How do the eyelets look after you have washed and blocked (gently stretched out) your swatch? Lace patterns (of which eyelets are the simplest version) often look messy until they have been “dressed”, especially if your yarn is a little stiff.

Regarding your eyelets veering off, are you remembering that the instruction “YO” does not include a knit stitch? So to make the centre spine, you will knit up to the centre stitch, put your yarn over your needle, knit your centre stitch, put your yarn over your needle, then knit on.

So YO = yarn over needle only and no knit stitch or any other movement. A YO does not use up a stitch, it simply creates a loop that will be converted into a normal stitch when you knit or purl it on the following row.

Hope that helps. Please post a photo if you are still stuck.

1 Like