KNITTED-ON BORDER

by MIRIAM FELTON

READ ORIGINAL POST HERE




The most wonderful thing about a knitted-on border is that it gives you an edge that is not only decorative, but elastic enough to withstand severe blocking. Quite often, the stretch and openness of lace will be too much for a traditional bound off edge and an alternative must be found. There are many bind-offs specifically for lace, but none of them give quite the same decorative touch as a knitted-on border.

The basic premise behind a knitted-on border is that the border stitches are worked at a 90 degree angle to the body stitches. The border is joined to the body as you work border rows by a joining decrease. This joining decrease can be any kind of decrease, but I prefer a k2tog tbl because it gives a nice firm join without any sloppy open stitches.

by Miriam L. Felton

Begin by casting on the number of stitches needed for the border. As you can see I have just attached the body yarn (mauve) to the border yarn (gray) by way of a simple overhand knot. I usually undo my knots later and weave in the ends. But if you were doing the border in the same yarn as the body, then you wouldn’t even need to attach anything, just continue with the same yarn. For ease of demonstration though, we will use 2 different colors of yarn. I used a cable cast on here because I like the nice firm edge.

by Miriam L. Felton

Work in border pattern until you have one stitch left from the border and one stitch left from the body. Here you can clearly see them – one gray, one mauve. And work a joining decrease using one border and one body stitch. This joining decrease has 2 purposes. 1. It attaches the border-in-progress to the body, and 2. It anchors the body stitch so that it will not unravel. It’s like binding it off, but without involving any other body stitches.

by Miriam L. Felton

After working a joining decrease, you will turn the piece and work the next border row. But in order to give a flat join and minimize bulk, I like to slip the first border stitch (which is incidentally, the stitch that you just created by working the joining decrease). The stitch to be slipped is the first border stitch closest to the body stitches.

by Miriam L. Felton

If you continue in this fashion, joining every other border row to the body via a joining decrease, you will begin to see how the border is attached. It can be difficult to see this after only a few rows, but persevere! Here you can clearly see the right angle at which the border is knitted on to the body.

by Miriam L. Felton

This is an alternate view of the same point, where you can see the way the body and the border stitches twist together to form the joining decrease.

by Miriam L. Felton

Here you can see the back view of the same point. The knitted on border is clean and even on both right and wrong sides.

by Miriam L. Felton

A knitted-on border can be worked with a variety of needle preferences. I like to use the same circular needle that is holding my live body stitches to work the border, and if I weren’t using a different color completely, I would place a stitch marker before the final border stitch next to the body so that I would slip the marker and then know to work the joining decrease.

by Miriam L. Felton

Continue with the border rows until all of the body stitches are used up. I like to finish with a joining row. I work the final row, binding off as I go, until I have one body and one border stitch left, then work my joining decrease and bind off the final stitch. As you can see, the edge lies flat and even this way.

by Miriam L. Felton

Here you can see how the finished border rows and body stitches meet. There is a tiny bit of mauve peeking out from the border rows where the joining decrease stitches intertwine.

by Miriam L. Felton

In this close-up you can see how the body rows (mauve) are worked horizontally, and the border rows (gray) are worked vertically.

by Miriam L. Felton

I hope you found this tutorial useful and clear. If you’ve got any questions, please leave them in the comments and I will answer them in the comments.

Come back for the release of the Foliage Shawl pattern.

Bell ruffle

READ ORIGINAL POSTS HERE AND HERE

by martian mischief in Knitter´s Review Forum



My favorite ruffle is called a bell ruffle because it looks like a row of bells along the bottom of a garment. I just used it on the sleeves of a sweater. Here are general directions to make one.

You will have a column of garter stitch between each ruffle.
Decide if you are going to make this 2, 3, or 4 stitches wide.
For my sleeves I used 3 stitches so I needed a multiple of 4 stitches plus 1.
For the bottom of a scarf, I put 2 stitches of garter stitch on each edge. The pattern is:

Set up row: k2, YO, k1, YO, *p3, YO, k1, YO,* across ending k2

Row 2 and all even numbered rows: k2, p to last 2 stitches, k2

Row 3 and all odd numbered rows: k2, YO, k all knit stitches of previous row, YO, *p3. YO, knit all stitches from previous row, YO* k2

Repeat these 2 rows until ruffle is length desired.

I prefer to pick up the stitches along one side of a scarf when making this ruffle, but it could be worked in either direction if the increase stitch was changed from a YO to another increase. I just like the way it hangs with the YO.

fran



Learn the basic principle of a ruffle.
You have an edge attached to a garment.
This is the short edge.
The outside edge is larger than the one attached to the garment.
This is what makes it ruffle. More stitches at the outside edge than at the inside edge.
How many more? Think of curtains.
Your average drapery has twice as much width, so double your stitches and you will get a nice controlled ruffle. curtains rather than draperies will have 2 to 3 times as much width and those sheer full curtains usually held back with ties have 5 to 6 times as much width.
Now, decide how full you want it to be and just increase your stitches.

Go for it.

fran







FREE PATTERN SHAWL HERE

Frills & Ruffles

by Cotton & Cloud


1) Simple Gathered Frills (↑)

In a nutshell: CO 3-4 times the amount of final sts you want. Once you reach the desired length of the frills, gather at the top (either k3tog if you multiplied by 3, or k2tog for 2 rows if you multiplied by 4).

Advantage: This is the easiest method of making frills. They are dense and effective.

Disadvantage: You have to CO so many sts which could be daunting.

READ OIRIGINAL POST HERE

Row and Rows of Ruffles Tutorial

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Kara

When it comes to adding ruffles to your knits, the possibilities are absolutely endless. The methods described here are simple techniques that anyone can learn. You can tweak just a few stitches, add a single stripe, or work in a new yarn and you have a totally new look.

This tutorial will show you a few easy methods, each resulting with a slightly different look.
You can make single ruffles, or get a little daring and add layers of them.
Use them as an embellishment, or incorporate them into a simple scarflette to create a look that’s uniquely yours.

The Basic Ruffle
This ruffle is worked in stockinette stitch, requiring simple K2tog and P2tog decreases over two rows of your work.
You would cast on 4 times the number of stitches required.
In the example below, we’ve chosen to cast on 80 sts, so we can arrive at 20 stitches, which would make a pretty edging for a scarf.

Single Basic Ruffle:
Cast on 80 sts; then work in St st to your desired length.
Next row: (RS) K2tog across.
Next row: P2tog across.


READ ORIGINAL POST HERE

Adding the border to my sencillo shawl

2012/01/31 BY BRITTSNEEZER

READ ORIGINAL POST HERE

SHAWLETTE PATTERN HERE and HERE

i have had a demand for directions on adding the border to my sencillo shawl after knitting the body. so here we go…

knit the entire body of the shawl ignoring the bold border directions. which means you will be casting on1st to start. to do the first increase then i would just kfb.

now with your border yarn, CO 10 sts and follow row 1’s border directions.

turn work and knit the row 2 directions to the last st.

slip that stitch to the right needle and then pick up the first stitch of the first garter ridge from the right side of the main body knitting.

knit that first stitch with the last stitch from the border (through the back or the front, whichever feels easier) and turn work.

on row 3, slip the first stitch and then follow the directions for the rest of the border stitches in that row. turn work. and knit row 4 border stitches, again knitting the last stitch with the first stitch in the next ridge.

continue in this manner to the end.

now you see some extra pulling in my picture but that is because i was using too large of needles with the thin yarn (because that was all that i had available.)