PESKY PICKING UP

Q Hi there! I’m new to your magazine and really enjoying it. My skill level isn’t great and one thing that’s holding me back from lots of projects is not knowing how to pick up stitches around necks and edges on cardigans. Can you help please? Elaine Wall, via email

Of course we can – picking up stitches, like a lot of knitting techniques, can seem daunting at first, but is quite simple when you get the hang of it. Before you start picking them up, you want to make sure that they will be evenly spaced. There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of a long row and not having the right number of stitches on your needles! You generally pick up a stitch for every cast o stitch or row, but it can vary depending on the pattern.

The easiest way to be sure is to split the edge you’re picking up from into quarters (or eighths, depending on how many stitches you have to pick up), separating each section with pins or locking stitch markers. Once you’ve done this, you can work out how many stitches you need to pick up from each part and you know you’ll have the right number at the end. If you are picking up stitches for a neck (where you are working from cast-o stitches), you will see that each stitch looks like a little ‘V’ – your edge will be tidiest if you put your needle directly into the centre of the ‘v’ just below the cast o stitch. Similarly, when picking up stitches from rows (such as along the front of a cardigan for button bands), you will get the neatest finish by working in between the two stitches closest to the edge of the work. With all that prep out of the way, it’s time to get down to picking up some stitches: Holding the piece of knitting you are going to pick the stitches up from in your left hand, and starting at the top-right corner, insert the right-hand needle between the first two stitches of the row.

Wind your yarn around the needle and ‘knit’ the first stitch...

...and pull the new stitch through between the two stitches.

Continue to work like this along the row or until you have picked up the necessary amount of stitches.