Are your stitches sitting pretty?

How do your stitches sit on your needles? In this post, I shall explain the different ways in which stitches may sit and how you can control which way they sit, for knitting both left- and right-handed.

In my last post, I wrote about a basic knit fabric structure – stocking stitch. The diagram below shows stocking stitch fabric without needles (from the right side). Before I discuss how stitches sit, I want to introduce you to some useful terms that will help us understand this. The leg of the stitch nearest the ball of yarn (yarn end) is the leading leg (right leg in this diagram); the leg furthest from the yarn end is the lagging leg (the left leg).

Stocking stitch fabric on a knitting machine

When stocking stitch fabric is on a knitting machine, there is one needle (grey hooks below) per stitch, so the stitches are flat.

How do stitches sit in hand-knit

So what happens in hand-knit? Each stitch has to rotate slightly to allow it to sit on the same knitting needle. There are two possibilities:

• The leading leg is in front of and the lagging leg behind the needle.
• The lagging leg is in front of and the leading leg behind the needle.

Let’s look at these possibilities for knitters who knit right-handed, then those who knit left-handed.

Knitting right-handed

So, when knitting right-handed, where the stitches start on the left needle and move to the right needle, the right leg is the leading leg and the left leg is the lagging leg.

Here, the stitches sit so that the leading leg is in front of the needle; this is normal for Western-style knitters.

In the following diagram, the leading leg is behind the needle. This is the normal way that the stitches sit for Combination style knitters and Eastern style knitters (although, the fabric structure is different for this style). Most Western-style knitters will have met stitches that sit like this from time to time. Sometimes this is deliberate, for example when working some decreases a stitch or two may be swapped from the leg at the front to the leg at the back by slipping it knitwise. This may also occur by accident when some stitches have been unravelled or a dropped stitch picked up and placed on the needle with the leading leg behind.

Knitting left-handed

So, when knitting left-handed, where the stitches start on the right needle and move to the left needle, the left leg is the leading leg and the right leg is the lagging leg.

Here, the stitches sit so that the leading leg is in front of the needle; as with right-handed knitting this is the normal way that knit stitches sit for Western-style knitters.

In the following diagram, the leading leg is behind the needle. As before, this is the normal way that knit stitches sit for Combination style knitters and Eastern style knitters.

How do you control which way stitches sit?

The position of the leading leg in a stitch is determined by the way that the yarn wrapped around the needle when the stitch was formed.

Positioning the leading leg at the front

If the leading leg is to be at the front of the needle, the yarn must be wrapped around the needle so that the yarn end is at the front.

The next diagram shows how this is done for a knit stitch when knitting right-handed. The yarn is held at the back of the fabric, so it must pass over the needle then under it to return to the back.

The diagram below shows how this is done for a knit stitch when knitting left-handed. Again the yarn is held at the back of the fabric, and again it must pass over the needle then under it to return to the back.

If you look at the two diagrams again, you will see that when knitting right-handed, the yarn is moved around the needle (viewed from the non-pointed end) in a clockwise direction, whereas when knitting left-handed the yarn moves in an anticlockwise (counterclockwise) direction.

Positioning the leading leg at the back

If the leading leg is to be at the back of the needle, the yarn must be wrapped around the needle so that the yarn end is at the back.

The diagram below shows how this is done for a knit stitch when knitting right-handed; the yarn is held at the back of the fabric, so it must pass under the needle then over it to return to the back.

The next diagram shows how this is done for a knit stitch when knitting left-handed; again the yarn is held at the back of the fabric, and again it must pass under the needle then over it to return to the back.

Take a look at the two diagrams again; you will see that when knitting right-handed yarn moves around the needle (viewed from the non-pointed end) in an anticlockwise direction, whereas when knitting left-handed yarn moves in a clockwise direction.

You may have realised that the way in which the original stitch sits on a needle does not affect how a new stitch will sit. If, in the diagram above, the left-hand stitch was sitting with its leading leg at the front, then wrapping the yarn around the needle in the way shown will still form a new stitch with the leading leg at the back. This applies to any combination of stitches and yarn wrapping.

Pulling it all together

So for knitting right-handed, we have:

And for knitting left-handed we have: