Vickie: We're here today with Lily Chin and we've been working on decorative stitches.
Alright, we're ready to go, what kind of yarn do we need to look for?
Lily: Some yarns are better than others for certain stitches like textured stitches, knit-
purl combination. You want smooth with good stitch definition. However, some
of these you might be able to take advantage of novelty yarns as well.
Vickie: Okay. Let’s look at this. This is gorgeous.
Lily: Okay, this is the drop stitch. And you will notice that these rows are actually
elongated and this row here is much longer than a regular row. You can do this
with a garter stitch base which is I did here or you can do it in stocking it base, it
doesn’t matter. But the thing with the drop stitch is, when you are knitting, you
wrap the yarn once, twice around the needle.
Vickie: Okay.
Lily: And then you take it off. Again, when you're ready to knit, instead of wrapping
just once the normal way, you want to do it twice. Not too tightly, otherwise you
won't be able to move those stitches later. Again you wrap it, wrap it twice. And
you do that across the row. Now I'm going to pretend that I've got that across the
row. But I'm just doing a few stitches here.
On the next row, you will have to drop one of those loops. Remember it was a
double wrap. You knit into the first loop, but then you drop the second one and
that what makes it long. And you notice it looks like double the number of
stitches, when in fact, you're only going to knit the first one, drop the second.
So it looks like way too many stitches, but they all get drop in the next row. And
that’s how you get the elongated drops.
Vickie: And this is a good time to mention that it’s really important to do a swatch with
your decorative stitching.
Lily: Exactly. Not so important when you're doing scarves, placemats. Those things
will have to real specific size. But for garment, it’s crucial.
Vickie: Okay.
Lily: This by the way is the great advantage of novelty yarn, because you can see with
the drop stitch, it really shows off the strands itself.
Vickie: Okay, is there a certain amount of stitches for this particular pattern even-odd, or
is it just not matter?
Lily: It does not matter because you do that across the whole row.
Vickie: Okay, perfect.
Lily: Now this is a variation. It’s very similar to the drop, this is the twisted drop. And
again, you can do it any old stitch. Does not matter. But same thing, across the
whole row, here's what you do. So you go into the stitch, as you normally would,
as if to knit, and now you’re going to wrap the yarn around both needles.
Vickie: Okay.
Lily: And then the original needle. Knit it through, take it off.
Vickie: Okay.
Lily: Again, go into the stitch first as if to knit, the yarn gets wrap around both of the
needles. And then only the original first one, and you can see that it makes an
elongated stitch immediately. There's no dropping, extra loops on the subsequent
row here. You get the extra length when you wrap it around the both needles and
then the one. That what creates that length. And it also gives you that little twist.
Vickie: Okay, perfect.
Now this one I have to say is by far my favorite. This is gorgeous.
Lily: So you can do a drop stitch so to you can do this. It’s really easy, instead of
wrapping once, you wrap twice. Next time three times, four times, you wrap three
times, two times, and then back down to one for a few stitches and you repeat.
Twice, three, four, back down to three, two, and then on subsequent rows, you
knit the first stitch, drop all the other extra wraps.
Vickie: And we're calling this sea foam waves, right?
Lily: Exactly.
Vickie: Great. Alright, let's move on. You see this a lot in patterns for baby garments.
This is adorable.
Lily: Oh, who doesn’t love bubbles? I mean, look at the textural depth that pops out at
you. Now with the bubble, you can do it in stockinette or reverse stockinette. Me
personally, I like reverse stockinette because it seems to pop out that many more.
If you get to the stitch where you want the bubble. Now inside this stitch, in order
to create that much pop out texture, I'm going to have to do increases in that one
stitch. So my one will become 5. How do you make 5? Here's knit, yarn over,
that’s two. Knit, yarn over, that makes 4. And then you knit again, and now you
have 5 stitches coming out of that one.
Vickie: Out of that same loop.
Lily: Exactly. Now, not only do you need extra stitches, but you’ll also need extra rows
to make it really pop out. So you're going to have to flip this around and you're
going to knit. Since I want my bubble in reverse stockinette. I'm going to knit
across those five only. And again, that one stitch has become 5.
Now I turn it around and I will purl this, just the third row of the bubble. I'm only
working on those stitches that I have increase. And once more, slip it around so
that I can knit and you will only have one more row thereafter. And that is a right
side row. That is purl.
Now, on this purl row, I also want my five stitches to go back down to one. In
other words, I don’t want the increase stitches now that I've completed the bubble.
And to get rid of those extra stitches, what you do is you pass each one of the four
gained ones over the last ones. So here you pass the one stitch over at a time.
Vickie: One at a time.
Lily: And there is one, pass the second one over. There's passing the third one over.
And here is the fourth one. So those five stitches have again become one.
Vickie: Okay, look at that. That’s how you get your bubble.