Little Cotton Rabbits

duplicate stitch

Duplicate stitch (also known as Swiss darning) is a useful technique for adding a surface design onto an already knitted piece. It's a stitch I use a lot especially on the front of bunny jumpers and some of the more complex dress designs.

 

It works well for any design that would normally use intarsia and there are some advantages that duplicate stitch has over intarsia:

• Using lots of colours: When you knit intarsia using any more than 3 colours it becomes very complicated (and tangled) but working a design in duplicate stitch means that you can incorporate many more colours. I've used up to 6 together on one design

• Unpicking: With duplicate stitch it's easy to unpick the design completely if you don't like it any more and your knitted piece is still intact once you remove the design. You can also unpick to any point if you realise you've made a mistake – just gently undo half a stitch at a time without pulling too hard so as not to pucker the earlier stitches. If you've knitted in intarsia the whole thing would have to be unpicked.

• Using different yarn types: When using duplicate stitch you can mix different yarn types which might cause problems with tension if used during intarsia knitting. For instance you could use a fluffy yarn to work an animal design. It is not recommended to use a yarn that is thinner (or substantially thicker) than the yarn used for the knitting.

• Using duplicate stitch allows you to cheat a little by duplicate stitching just half a stitch. For instance in this little heart below I've added half a stitch at either end of the top row in order to smooth the curve of the top of the heart.

 

 

 

Before you start:

To block or not to block: It's entirely up to you. You will find it easier to work duplicate stitch neatly if your piece of knitting that lies flat so if you're unsure then best block first.

It is better to use a slightly blunt-nosed needle as a sharp needle can split stitches in the knitted fabric and make the whole process a bit more difficult.

Thread the needle with a long length of your chosen yarn. It's good to choose a colour that contrasts well with the background colour of your knitted piece and the weight of the yarn needs to be at least equal to the weight used in the background knitting.

tip: if you are using a yarn that snaps easily (like a single ply yarn) then you may want to work with shorter lengths and join in new lengths regularly at the back of the work - I've found that the repeated sewing through the stitches can wear a weak yarn and cause it to snap.

 

Where to start:

Start from a bottom corner of your chosen design. I've found it much harder to get a neat finish if I am working downwards and threading the yarn behind an already duplicated stitch above - it never sits as neatly so I recommend always starting at the bottom of the design and working upwards.

I prefer to start from the bottom right corner but doesn't matter if you start from the left or right of a design, so you choose what you're most comfortable with.

Find the centre point of your chart and mark the centre point of your knitting - this will make it easier to count out stitches so that you begin your design in the right place (here I've used a piece of blue thread to mark the centre stitch).

 

 

Here's how:

Thread your needle loaded with the length of yarn you've chosen for the design through your knitted piece from the back to the front by coming through the 'V' point of the first knit stitch that you want to duplicate...

 

Now from the front of the work slide the needle through both 'arms' of the stitch above, in the same direction as you are working in across the row (I always work the first row from right to left)...

 

And lastly take the needle back through the 'V' point of the stitch that you are duplicating from the front of the work to the back...

 

At this point check the tension of the duplicate yarn. Don't pull it too tightly or the work will begin to pucker but don't leave the duplicate yarn too baggy either - it needs to rest gently on top of the stitch being duplicated, hiding as much of it as possible.

That's one stitch duplicated...

 

Work across the length of the the row in the design that you are duplicating, repeating each step above for each stitch worked...

As you gain confidence with the technique you'll find that you can work entirely from the front side of the work and just slide your needle tip across from the end of one duplicate stitch to the bottom 'V' start point of the next stitch...

 

Finish the row with your needle on the wrong side of the work.

To start the next row bring your needle from the back of the work to the front through the centre of the next stitch to be worked in the design. If this is more than 2 stitches away from the last worked stitch then you can weave in the yarn at the back of the work to avoid a long yarn float. I find it easier to turn the work on it's side when I'm working from left to right back across a row...

 

Join in extra lengths of yarn where needed, either where you've run out of a colour, where a new colour is added or where there is a large gap between the areas in a design. You can knot ends together once you've finished and weave them in on the back of the design...

 

Finished duplicate stitched initial from the front...

 

I hope this helps a little. It's the way that I work with this technique but if you'd like some other explanations you'll find there are loads of tutorials and videos on the internet if you search 'duplicate stitch'

And if you'd like to use the alphabet charts to add an initial to your bunny sweater you can Download Alphabet chart.

Here's a chart for the rose that I have used before on some of the dresses for my animals (as pictured at the top of this post):

 

There are 4 colours used for the rose in order to create light and shadow within the petals. It can get very tangled on the back of the work so I tend to work one colour at a time. Tip: thread your tapestry needle with at least 1m/1yd of yarn and make your first stitch in the middle of the bottom row of a colour section, leaving half of the length of the yarn as a tail - then you can work upwards for the right-hand side of the design with that particular colour and then go back and pick up the long tail end to work the left-hand side. This allows you to use much longer strands of yarn and so creates less ends to sew in later on. Follow the tips for neat duplicate stitching as detailed above.

Happy stitching x

 

Knitting tips: Fair Isle/stranded colourwork

During writing up the first of my animal patterns it's been hard to know just how much detail to go into. I didn't want the patterns to only cover the written knitting instructions with a few lines about assembling the toy almost as an afterthought. Instead I wanted them to include as much detail of the finishing process as possible because I think that is a hugely important part of making them. But there is a limit to what you can pack in to a pattern and so I thought I'd write up some extra notes here on the blog that can be referred to if needed. These extra posts will be categorised under 'knitting tips' and the first of these 'knitting tips' posts is about Fair Isle/stranded colourwork knitting.

Through chatting with knitting friends it seems that stranded knitting is generally thought to be quite difficult. It really isn't though. It is a little bit fiddly and takes a little patience and practice to get right but it is perfectly achievable for anyone who can already knit and purl.

There are tons of instructions, diagrams and videos out there on the internet and plenty of books published on the subject and I'm not intending to cover every conceivable aspect of Fair Isle. Instead I'd like to write up notes on the way that I work stranded / Fair Isle and some tips I've learnt along the way to iron out some of the difficulties that are commonly experienced.

It is worth pointing out that I knit English style, with both colours in my right hand, so my notes below are written for that way of working. If you knit continental style with a colour in either hand then check out this video or try a search on You Tube as there are lots of other good ones.

 

Colour dominance:

When you knit a design with two colours you are constantly switching between them and it is really important to be consistent with the order in which you use them. By this I mean which yarn is stranded over the top of the other at the back of the work when it is not the colour being knitted with at the time.

It is generally accepted that the yarn stranded beneath will be the more dominant colour in the design.

For example, the two samples below are knitted in the same colours and to the same pattern. The only difference is that in sample A the cream yarn is stranded below the red yarn and in sample B the red yarn is stranded below the cream.

 

 

Because of this difference I usually strand the accent colour below the main background colour (as in sample B above). You can choose either way but the most important thing is to be consistent if you want your finished piece to look neat and even.

There is a lovely post here about the perils of ignoring yarn dominance!

Catching up the yarn at the back of the work:

When there are gaps between sections of a pattern worked in the same colour the strands of un-worked yarn that travel across the back of the work are called floats.

 

It is generally suggested that floats should not strand across more than 7 stitches but my preference is for no more than 4 stitches. If I have to strand yarn across 5 or more stitches I always catch up my floats and usually in the centre of the span.

Lots of people only catch up their floats with a single wrap but I have found that my knitting looks much neater with a double catch up.

How to do double catch ups:

In this sample the darker pink is the main colour and the lighter pink is the accent colour.

Here I need to strand the accent yarn that I'm using for polka-dots across the back of 6 stitches of the main colour. Because it is the accent colour I am stranding it below the main colour (see above note on colour dominance).

To catch up a long float first bring the accent colour from underneath the main colour.

 

Then work the next stitch with the main colour, so catching the un-worked accent yarn up with the loop between the stitches worked in the main colour. Then take the accent colour over the top of the main colour before working the next stitch, so catching the un-worked accent yarn a second time in a downwards direction.

 

At this point it is good practice to gently tighten the main colour stitch you've just worked as it can become a little loose with the extra yarn caught through it. It is important not to tighten the accent colour strand as this will cause the work to pucker and become uneven. Keep the strands of accent colour caught up at the back loose enough to stretch with the work.

Here's how it looks from the back. You can see the floats of accent yarn are caught up each time by two loops of the main colour yarn.

This technique can be used on both a knit or purl row.

Other rules that I always apply to fair-isle/stranded colourwork

• Try not to catch up your floats in exactly the same place on consecutive rows as this can lead to banding on the front of the work.

• Always take any strands of un-worked colours right to the end of each row and catch them up on the edge by twisting them with the yarn currently being used. If you don't do this you will end up with gaps in your knitting where the stranded yarn pulls at the fabric.

• If you are working sections of a pattern that don't include one of the colours, run this un-worked colour up the side of the work by twisting it with the main colour at the end of rows rather than cutting and re-attaching it each time it is needed.

• If you are mattress seaming your piece try to sew through the strands of both yarns when they are both present on the same row rather than just the main colour as this will give a much neater and more robust seam.

• You can mix different brands of yarn but stick to the same weight category and yarn composition - for instance don't use a 4ply cotton yarn with a 4ply wool yarn as they will have different stretching properties.

These notes are not intended as an exhaustive guide but just a mention of the techniques that I like to use. A search on google or You Tube will give you many more tips and techniques if you want to know more.

If you have an aspect of knitting that you'd like me to write about in more detail please let me know and I'll do my best to help.

Thanks x