Reducing laddering effect

#1

Hi all,

I’m knitting with DPNs and no matter how tight I make the first stitch on each needle, I’m still ending up with the ladder effect. Is there some way to minimize this?

Thanks,
Drea

#2

Hiya Rea n welcome to the party:balloons:
I hear ya on the ol’ ladder thingamabob there.
Instead of trying to tighten on the first stitch of the next needle, knit two stitches off the next needle and then give it a little tug to snug it up. That way the stitches will lock and it should alleviate the problem to a point. Other than that, the way you situate your needles for the next needle might be a problem as well. Have the next needle to be knitted sitting on top of the needle you just knit. That shortens the distance between the needles as well. Hope this helps ya:thumbsup: :knitting:

#3

I get this problem when doing ML. What I’ve found works the best is to change the distribution of stitches on each round. So if this round you have 12, 12, 12, next round you want to set it up so you have 14, 11, 11 or something like that. If you keep it different each row, then you’ll get a loose stitch which is easy enough to work into the surrounding stitches, but you won’t get a ladder.

#4

I just made a pair of fingerless mitts from the palm to the ribbed cuff, I had no laddering on the hand part, but the ribbing was laddered. I don’t know what is with that. Any ideas?

#5

ML?

#6

I actually tried something I’d read about and it worked excellently. When you CO, CO one more stitch than what is called for and when you go to join in the round, you knit that extra stitch with the first stitch (doing a k2tog) and it made for a nice tight join. I can’t recall the exact instructions off top of my noggin but will try to find the reference page I used for that. Best of luck.

#7

Hiya again Rea,
ML, otherwise known as “magic loop”, is a technique for knitting in the round that uses a very long single circular needle. I think that there is a video on the subject here. I’m not sure.
But I do know that there is one on “Silver’s Sock Tutorial” page.
Hopefully someone can post the addy for that as I don’t have it.

#8

Thanks! Makes sense. I will also try the suggestion of changing the number of stitches on each DPN, with each round. I’ll try those with the second mitten.

Drea

#9

Actually, my name is Drea ;).

I’ve not delved into ML yet, but do have a book on it. I’m still getting familiar with all the new acronyms in knitting talk.

#10

:aww: :aww: OOPS!!! My bad!!! :slight_smile: :whistle: