Here’s a basic 5×5 ribbing (5 knits and then 5 purls).

Materials

Yarn: Berroco Tillie (62% Pima Cotton, 38% Cupro) 100 g and 375 yds / 343 m; color Fay 10915

Needles: US #7/4.5 mm sharp metal points

Chart

My Swatch

CO 21 sts – 15 for the ribbing and 3 for each edge in seed stitch.

I was on auto-pilot so I did a few garter rows before switching to the ribbing. But, in reality, I didn’t need to do that. The ribbing would have laid pretty flat without it.

Those Yellow Stitches

I found that my stitches near a transition were a bit looser. I did the typical tricks of pulling the stitches near the transition more tightly. And, while it did help, there was still some looseness.

So, I purled the 2 stitches near the transition through back loop. I only did it on RS rows, so it didn’t break up the nice columns of knit stitches.

See the difference?

It might seem counterintuitive that the portion of the swatch that’s WITH the tbl stitches got bigger.

But, if you look at the swatch, you can see that the knit columns stay roughly the same. But the purl section got a bit larger. That’s because the purl stitches were actually stacked behind the knit stitches more. But with the tbl stitches, the swatch lays flatter.

More Than Just for a 5×5 Ribbing

The tbl is a good trick to remember whenever you’re transitioning and the one stitch looks a bit loose.