Um...help?

How-to Questions
1

I need help decoding some of these instructions for this pattern, please. It’s from the Creative Knitting magazine January 2010 issue. It’s called Drop the Gauntlet.

First question:
It says to drop the next st from the needle and allow it to unravel for 5 rows. Does that mean I pick it up after it unravels for 5 rows and put it back on my needle? If so, which needle do I put it on?

Second question:
It says to M1. I know that means to make one and I’m not as familiar to M1 as I am to knitting in the front and back. Could I just do that instead or would that make an extra number of sts?

Third question:
Also, which M1 do I use? In my help book thingy I have, it gives me several. Like M1L, M1R, M1A, etc. The pattern just says M1…

If anyone could give me a hand that would be quite wonderful. :slight_smile: Thank you very much.

2

No when you drop a stitch like this, you don’t pick up the same stitch.

Use the simple M1L, and if a pattern says to use that and you do a kfb, the incs will be in the wrong place.

3

the trick with drop stitches like that is:

either they go down to the cast on edge

or the more elaborate go down to a stitch that you increased previously.

so, if this pattern works our correctly (I do not have the magazine) your stitch can not drop further than those 5 rows. Check that before you drop the stitch down!

Because of that I think I would stick with the Make1 thing as well.

Is there no definition anywhere with this pattern? Or in glossary that the whole magazine refers to? A stitch explanation?

Well, if there is none, our glossary here says the following:

[I]Make 1. This means to increase a stitch. If the method isn’t specified, use whichever increase you like, for instance M1F.[/I]

Because of the drop stitches the method I would use is to knit out of the yarn between 2 stitches. [just lift that strand up onto your left needle and knit it off. You do not need to worry about creating a hole (prevent that by knitting through the back loop) because this stitch will be dropped (Please check that! That is my assumption)]

4

And if it M1 is used to make the new st that will be dropped, using the kfb won’t look the same when you drop the st, it needs to be added between sts. You don’t even have to twist the M1 if it’s the dropped st, just pick up the strand and knit it.

5

Okay, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you both very much. It helped emensely and I finished one of the gauntlets today and it looks great. It did just what you both said it would. The drop stitch only went down 5 rows. :woot: Thank you, thank you!