Knit Flix

Monday, January 02, 2006

Sussing out short row wraps

I thought I had them all figured out after the Retro Rib socks, but apparently not. I should have taken notes.

I thought what I did was wrap the last st in a short row by moving the stitch first, then move the yarn. So at the end of a knit row, sl st, move yarn to front, sl st back to left needle, move yarn to back, turn. (Spinnity, let me know if I got that wrong.)

Using that same logic, the purl wraps would be sl st, move yarn to the back, sl st back to left needle, move yarn to the front, turn. But doing that for both of the purl wraps (heels with double wraps) gave me one side of the heel that looked like this:

Bad purl wraps.

In comparison, the double wraps on the knit side look like this:

Knit wraps.

So I tried something else on sock #2. For the first wrap on the purl side, I wrapped it by moving the stitch first as described above. But the second wrap on the purl side was done by moving the yarn first: yib, sl st, yif, sl st back to left needle. This improved the purl wraps quite a bit, but they still don't match the knit wraps. Close enough though.

Better purl wraps.

Thankfully I put a lifeline in before I started the heels so ripping out heel #1 was a breeze.

So what's the trick to making short row heels that match? There are so many different variations on the web and I'm not inclined to try them all--yarn first, stitch first, sl purlwise, sl knit wise, methods for knitting/purling the wraps with the stitch, etc., etc..

5 Comments:

  • Perhaps you should try Japanese Short Rows? Maybe you can still get into the class at Stitches if they have one this year? I took it last year and it was very very cool.

    By Blogger Abigail, at 1/02/2006 5:18 PM  

  • I've done Japanese short rows on shoulders and thought they looked great. I thought short rows with wraps would be stronger for a heel. Not positive about that though.

    By Blogger Bogie, at 1/02/2006 5:38 PM  

  • I know mutton about short row wraps but just wanted to say that I like the sock yarn - s'pretty! :-D

    By Blogger Ilona, at 1/02/2006 10:13 PM  

  • Theres some info on knitty that may help you on short rows

    By Blogger soapy, at 1/03/2006 4:37 PM  

  • I use Priscilla Gibson-Roberts YO short rows and I really love how they look (and match!)

    By Blogger Debi, at 1/07/2006 9:58 PM  

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