When it comes to picking up stitches along a vertical or slanted or curved edge of knitted fabric, have you ever wondered why so many patterns tell you to “pick up X sts for every Y rows” instead of stating a specific number of stitches? A lot (most?) of the time when we pick up stitches, it’s to create an edge treatment that will be worked perpendicular to the direction of the original knitting, such as a ribbed button band on a cardigan. If stitches were square, aligning those two bits of knitting perpendicularly would be a 1:1 situation, but stitches are generally wider than they are tall. So if you were to pick up one stitch for every row of your cardigan fabric, your button band ribbing (to stick to this example) would be wider than the length of edge it’s attached to, causing it to flare or even ruffle.* Since row gauge can be hard to match, and you might also have decided to make your cardigan longer or shorter than the pattern — or it blocked out a bit different than you intended, etc — it’s often best for the pattern writer to give you the formula to go by, rather than a fixed number. But even that’s not foolproof: You might do exactly as the pattern says and still find your ribbing is splaying the original edge a bit. Or there’s the inverse: If you pick up too few stitches, you’re gathering the fabric along that edge, causing it to be shorter than it started out. So if you run into trouble — or you’re not working from a pattern, or you’ve deliberately made changes — how do you know how many stitches to pick up?
My incredibly knowledgeable friend Kate over at Kelbourne Woolens advocates for an elegant mathematical way of figuring it out, by breaking your gauge down into a fraction (or potentially a compound set of fractions). I’ve used that as a loose jumping off point since first hearing her talk about it in a class at Squam a few years ago. But even then, I adhere to advice I first read in Pam Allen’s “Knitting for Dummies” when I was a newbie: Test it. Especially when you’re picking up along a lengthy edge, such as a cardigan front or a shawl border, it’s worth taking the time to pick up only along a few inches first, knit your edging, and see if it lays flat.
You can also do this on a swatch, although I prefer testing on a larger area than just 4 inches. The beauty of a picked up edge is that it takes very little time to knit — it’s generally only a few rows of knitting — and can be ripped out without having any effect on the original fabric. So it’s a simple thing, and completely worthwhile, to engage in a bit of trial and error.
*Same as if you pick up too many stitches around a neck hole — you wind up with a ruffly, stand-up collar. Pull that sucker out and pick up fewer stitches around the sloping parts to get it make a nice round shape that lays flat.
. . .
EXAMPLE:
In the photo above (previously seen on Changing the Channel), I’ve entirely departed from the original treatment of Jared Flood’s Channel Cardigan — working a picked-up garter-stitch band instead of the pattern’s seamed English-rib collar. First, measure (maybe even mark off) the section you’re using for your test, so you’ll be able to tell if and how it’s changed once you’ve picked up into it — I used just the straight part of front edge here. I picked up 4 out of 5 for the first few inches (alongside the ribbing), then 3 out of 4 for the rest. You can see just looking at the photo that the lower part is being stretched — 4/5 is too many stitches here — and the rest of it was pulled in just a bit, so 3/4 is not enough. The correct ratio was somewhere in between, or rather a blend of the two. In order to effectively pick up 7 sts for every 9 rows, I picked up 3 out of 4, then 4 out of 5, repeat to the end. Make sense? Here’s how it turned out.
.
PREVIOUSLY in Hot Tips: Slope your bind-off
Lol that beats my method – pick up the stitches all the way around, knit it, realize it is too many, rip it out. Pick up fewer stitcehs all the way around, knit it, realize it is too few, rip it out again, get it right. A sample. BRILLIANT!
I always disregard the pattern’s instructions for picking up a certain number of stitches, because such advice is, in my experience, functionally irrelevant . Instead, I vary the number of stitches based on the shape of the line I’m picking up from. For example: On straight (90 degree ) verticals, such as button bands up cardigan-frontss, I usually pick up three stitches out of four rows. On diagonals, I pick up more to follow the need for both elasticity and because there are more rows per inch of rise to follow on a diagonal; so on diagonals I pick up 4 out of 5 rows, or 5 out of 6 rows. On really outwardly rounded curves I might pick up 1:1, or even kfb here and there as pick up to provide extra stretchiness. An example of this sort of area is the angle formed where the straight rise of a button hole band turns into the V next of a cardigan. On an inward curving edge, I pick up fewer stitches, maybe 2 out of 3 rows.
By the way, I always make a selvedge of a k first stitch on right side, purl first stitch on wrong side, so that I have a ridge at the selvedge edge that has a hole for each row. I do not ever slip a first stitch on a selvedge where I need to pick up stitches, as it makes a baggy edge to join to.
By the way, I know I’ve picked up too few stitches if my button band folds outward, over the right side of the garment, and I’ve picked up too many stitches if my button band (or shoulder top) is baggy or has a ruffled look.
I love this blog!! Thanks so much for all the great stuff!
Yeah, that’s the nice thing about doing your own thing — you can fine-tune in a way that a pattern-writer could never write. It’s one of those (many) things where once you have an understanding of it, you can exert more control.
Thanks for the example!! I will definitely have to test this on a larger piece, like you said, first.
When I write patterns, I almost always stipulate a pickup ratio instead of exact numbers (Harriet’s Jacket is an exception) to allow for the fact that a knitter may decide to alter the length of a garment. Incidentally, I first came across this concept way back in the 1970s when Knitting Without Tears came out. That book was incredibly liberating to knitters at the time, although it’s hard for younger knitters now to realize that. The old method of placing pins at 1″ intervals and picking up a set number of stitches per inch was hideous, not to mention useless for a novice knitter wanting to shorten or lengthen a garment. I use different ratios for different situations, from 2 sts per 3 rows for armhole pickups in stocking stitch, to 1 stitch per ridge in garter stitch, to 3 stitches per 4 rows for a vertical front border. But there are exceptions depending on the stitch used for the body of the garment. BTW, I have a preference for garter stitch borders.
Karen, it’s posts like these that remind me why I love this blog. There’s always food for thought.
I too have “tested” by doing it multiple times on the final garment. This is a great tip, and one I hope to try soon! Thank you!
Another jewel to add to the toolbox!
Just in time Karen!!!! Working on my first Bellows I find myself worrying about the “Collar” when I get to the finishing line. This is a great tip! Thank you!!! I love this blog more each day!!!
Pingback: Hot Tip: Count, don’t measure | Fringe Association