I’m knitting a pattern that tells me to add one stitch at the end of some knit and purl rows. I’m using the M1A increase, making the loop with my finger and putting it on the needle. It’s working fine on one side of my work, but leaving holes all down the other edge. I thought it might be because on the knittinghelp page with all the increases, Amy says she did the increases only on knit rows…so maybe I need to do a different kind of loop when I increase at the end of a purl row??? I’m not sure! Thanks to anybody who can help!!
If you’re putting the loop on your thumb, you’re really doing a cast-on and that will give you a hole since it’s not attached to a stitch underneath. You cold just purl into the front and back loops of the stitch for an increase.
Hmm, I’m putting the loop on my pointer finger, not my thumb, if that makes any difference, like in the M1A video. In the M1T video, she makes it on her thumb. Maybe I should do that? Or maybe this has something to do with the fact that when I’m knitting/purling a row, I’m always slipping the first stitch?
How do I purl into BOTH the front and back loops of a stitch? How does that make an additional stitch? I can’t figure it out when I try. And would I do it to the last stitch in the row, or would I do it to the first stitch when I turn my work around before I start a new row? I’m totally confused, still. Sorry!
When you purl into the front AND back, you first do a purl stitch as normal, except you DO NOT slip that stitch off. You then purl into the back, THEN slip the stitch off, and you have made an extra stitch. Usually when I M1, I lift up the bar btw the 2 sts and either knit into the front or back of it depending on which way I want to it slant.
So if I’m adding a stitch at the end of a row, does that mean I should purl into the front and back of the last stitch on my row, or into the first stitch at the beginning of my next row?
Will it work for knit rows and purl rows alike?
And I still can’t figure out how to purl into the front of a stitch. Because if you’re just doing things normally, you would knit into the front of a stitch, and purl into the back of a stitch, right? So I can figure out how to purl into the back of a stitch but not slip the stitch off and then purl into the back again, thereby slipping off two stitches… But purling into the front of a stitch is blowing my mind! Haha! sigh
I don’t s’pose there’s some easy way of just making a loop a certain way at the end of a row to get my extra stitch? I’m supposed to add a stitch at the end of these rows. See, I had this problem with the first thing I made…holes on the one side where I was increasing. You can see them pretty well here: http://borenfamily.blogspot.com/2006/08/cloth-diapers-and-whatnot.html
And now I’m making a pair of longies but I’d really like it to NOT have holes, you know?!
When you look at a loop to knit into, you have a ‘leg’ on the front of the needle and one at the back of the needle–as if the needle was a horse and the yarn is the rider.
When we knit or purl normally, we’re using the front leg of the loop. Knitting by inserting the needle from left to right, purling from right to left. When we knit or purl into the back loop, it’s using the leg thats behind the needle.
If the pattern says to increase at the end of the row, you could, I suppose increase at the beginning of the next row. The only difference is that you wouldn’t be working that stitch at the beginning of the row. I honestly don’t think it would make that much difference for a diaper cover, though. The increases would just be one row ‘off.’
Oh, thank you for the “horse and rider” explanation. I get it! I’m going to try that. I s’pose I could undo the row I’ve just done in order to increase at the beginning of it instead of the end of it, so that my increases won’t be one row off, but like you said, it probably doesn’t matter too much. Thanks!
