Thursday, August 23, 2012

Anatomy of a Wrap

I wrap stitches a little differently than most knitters.

You might notice that the technique illustrated below is rather a hairsplitting one.  But I bring it to you because I use it in several different contexts, and its utility is not commonly known.  I figured it was about time I documented it. 


Here is the classic way to wrap a stitch:

1. With working yarn in back (shown here in pink), slip a stitch from L to R needle.


2. Bring the working yarn to the front, and around the slipped stitch.


3. Slip the stitch back from R to L needle and bring the yarn to the back again.
Voila, the stitch is wrapped.


Straightforward enough.  Here's how I do it.

1. Reverse yarnover.


2. Slip a stitch from L to R needle.


3. Pick up the YO with the tip of the L needle, and pull it up and over the slipped st and off the R needle.


4. Voila, the stitch is wrapped.


Did you see the key difference in the resulting wrapped stitches?

Image A shows what results from the traditional way of wrapping stitches: your working yarn is coiled around your wrapped stitch like a spring, with the tail of the working yarn, shown here in light pink, emerging from the top of the coil.


Whereas, Image B shows what results from how I wrap a stitch: the working yarn emerges from underneath itself, like a loop cast on turned on its side.

It's a subtle difference, yes, but my method makes a neater result because the wrap can't creep up the sides of its stitch when the fabric is under stress. It is this little difference in structure that makes Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bindoff so elastic, and gives my reinforced "Eye of Ra" buttonhole its tidy edge.

P.S. Almost forgot!  Above applies to how I wrap a knit stitch, because the yarn starts and ends in the back.  When wrapping a purl stitch, the yarn starts and ends in the front, so it works a little differently.  This is why, in JSSBO, you do a reverse yarnover for knit stitches and a regular yarnover for purl stitches.

Here's what happens.  Purl sts are shown in darker grey.

1. Yarnover the usual way, and bring yarn to front of work.

2.  Slip a stitch from L to R needle.

3. Pick up the YO with the tip of the L needle, and pull it up and over the slipped st and off the R needle.

4. Voila, the stitch is wrapped.

Here's how it looks close up:

14 comments:

  1. Have I ever told you that you're brilliant? You are!

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  2. super idea...makes more structural sense...you amaze me how you can see these things.

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  3. Makes sense and looks easier to execute, too.

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  4. Cool! I wondered why the reverse yarn overs in your bind off, I'll look out for this next time I use it!

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  5. Thank you, thank you, thank you! No matter how hard I tried my wrapped stitches never looked right until I tried your method! I will never go back to the other way!

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  6. Thank you for sharing this Jeny, I feel as though a light has just switched on in my brain.

    Janice (whippety)

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  7. Genius! Can´t wait to try this method, it seems so logical!

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  8. Thanks so much for this! The pictures are perfect.

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  9. Am going to try this today but you don't mention how to pick up the wraps.
    It looks like you would have an extra layer of yarn to deal with.






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    1. Sorry for my delayed reply -- and for not clarifying that I don't use this method in combination with techniques that require picking up the wrap. In JSSBO for instance, the wrap is slipped over the needle along with the previous stitch -- this is why it has a somewhat decorative (some would say bulky) appearance. And in the Eye of Ra buttonhole the wrap itself is a key structural element.

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  10. I am doing a wrap and turn, and it doesn't seem to work. Can you add illustrations for after the turn. And ditto for the hiding question. When you knit the wrap on the following row - please illustrate.

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    1. Thanks for your comment, please see my reply just above to answer your question.
      As for adding illustrations -- one of these days I will get around to doing an illustrated technical analysis of short row methods, some of which require wraps and some of which don't. The illustrations are a significant time commitment though, so in the meantime, I enthusiastically recommend TechKnitter's article on this general topic. See techknittingDOTblogspotDOTcom and refer to her post on Oct 28, 2009, "Short rows: method" (I can't put a hyperlink in the comments, sorry).

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