Pick up and increase

How-to Questions
1

I don’t know what I’d do without your help!

I’m working on a pattern called Wild, Wooly, and Western: The Winter Cowboy Hat. In order to start the brim, the instructions state:

Beginning the brim: Pick up and increase:
Working from the right side of the work, pick up with #13 needles from the cast-on loops of the crown for the inner edge of the brim. Your increases will be lifted increases. The sequence is:
[B]Pick up 3, (knit 1 in stitch below loop, knit 1 in loop) 20 times[/B].
This will give you an increase of 1 stitch for every four stitches or five stitches in each sequence, 20 times.

The part I don’t understand how to do is bolded. Thanks for any clarification you can offer!

2

Pick up 3 sts, then in the next st, pick up 2, one in the front loop, and one in the back. You’ve picked up 5 sts for every 4 there were originally.

3

When you say pick up one stitch in the front loop and one in the back loop, what exactly do you mean? I just can’t picture it. Thanks!

4

The loop is the top loop that forms the back of the stitch. I guess the pattern actually says to pick up 1 in the st and one in the back of it.

5

I’m sorry to be so dense, but do I pick up this top loop that forms the back of the stitch [I]below[/I] the cast-on? And do I pick it up from the front or from the back? Ugh. I’m so much more of a visual learner.

6

Pick up 3, (knit 1 in stitch below loop, knit 1 in loop) 20 times.

Sometimes it’s easier to tip your left ndl slightly toward you so you can snag the ‘bump’ portion of the lower st (which is the P side of the lower st…it’s just below the st on your left ndl). Insert your ndl into the lower st that way, K it and then K the st above it on the left ndl. (2 sts)

7

Thanks Cam…I was confusing myself with not using the left needle (I usually pick up stitches with the right needle only).

So the stitch above the lower stitch is the same as the cast-on stitch, yes?

8

I think I’ve got; another much ado about nothing.

9

In this case, I guess you have to pick up the back loop of the sts on the left hand needle.