Expand your knitting with yet another method of working short rows with the Shadow Wrap Method. It’s another way to work short rows without a wrap and turn.
Even if you love one particular method, it’s good to know other options because sometimes one method looks better in a yarn than another.
Materials
Some knitting
Two hands
Right Side
Step 1: Knit to where you want to turn your short row.
Step 2: Work a lifted increase by lifting the stitch one row below the next stitch and placing it on the left hand needle and knitting it.
Step 3: Place that stitch back on the left hand needle and turn you work.
Wrong Side
Step 1: Purl to where you want to turn your short row.
Step 2: Slip the next stitch from the left needle to the right and insert the left needle up through the purl stitch to make a purl but do not drop the original stitch.
Step 3: Slide both those stitches together back to the left needle.
Step 4: Turn your work and proceed.
See the twinned stitches?
Close the gap using the instructions below.
Closing the Gap
When you come back to those twinned stitches either knit or purl them together.
OTHER SHORT ROWS TUTORIALS
This tutorial is part of our Short Rows series – see our tutorials on Japanese Short Rows and German Short Rows as well.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: MARY E. ROSE
Mary has been knitting for over 40 years.During this time she has discovered that she hasn’t met a knitting technique she didn’t like. As a fearless knitter, she will occasionally call her children over to “see something scary” such as pulling the needles out of a 400 stitch lace shawl, ripping back ten rows and picking the stitches back up, without a lifeline. (But, she does suggest using them, so don’t try that at home.) She believes that things are always easier the second time, so she gets the first time out of the way as quickly as possible, and that with a little practice, you can master any technique.
She currently lives in Central Ohio with her three children, who also craft. She can be found on Ravelry and her blog, or with knitting needles in hand, guarding her stash, whilst knitting a swatch.
I usually use the German short rows but I’m never totally satisfied with them. Tried to master this shadow wrap method instead but the end result is very untidy. If afterwards I pull and adjust each affected stitch to take away unnecessary slack here and add extra yarn where the stitch came out too small it looks great, but it takes a long time to fix a row. Can you give any pointers on fine details? I understand the technique perfectly, I can perform the actions described. But I can’t work out if I should really tighten the working yarn or leave it very loose at each point to keep an even tension throughout. Practice doesn’t seem to improve the results so I’m hoping you can help!
The yarn shouldn’t be either loose or tight. Are you maybe working the lifted increase with too much slack?
Thank you for the quick reply! Don’t think so, I keep it as tight as possible.
When started from the RS, by the time a short row turn is finished the “mama” stitch from which the double stitch originates is rather big. The stitch resulting from knitting the two loops of the double stitch together is also big. The stitch just to the right of the double stitch (I think that’s the first one I purl after turning but I’m not 100% sure) is very-very small. Once the double stitch is knitted together the loop that ends up on top, facing out is small, the loop behind it is bulging, showing around the front loop, a bit too big.
When started from the WS the situation is a bit better. Again the stitch resulting from the knitting the two double stitch loops together is bigger than it should be, and the stitch to the right of the doubles is too small.
Tried giving the working yarn a bit of a tug after turning to keep the slack at a minimum, didn’t seem to help.
I’m not sure where else it’s going wrong without seeing you actually doing it.
Well that’s hardly happening I guess 🙂 Thank you for trying though! Hope I can work it out somehow.
I wish I had another idea for you.