Knitting help, please!

oh wait, i’ll start it with a purl, won’t i?

If you’re doing a ribbing you start with a purl. You can tell what you need after you get past the second row, because if it looks smooth, you need a knit, and if it looks like a bump facing you, that takes a purl.

You can just purl back all the way and chose a right side and a wrong side to the time. If you end with a purl then you start with a knit for a ribbed pattern. Thus the same if you end with a knit you would start with a purl for a ribbed pattern. If you end with a purl and start with a purl you will get what’s called a seed stitch. So it goes end with a knit, and start with a knit it’s a seed stitch. Hope that helps.

Uh that’s item not time at the end of the first sentence. The arthritis is really messing with me right now. I just wish the snow storm would happen then the joints would stop swelling and hurting.

oh, i guess i wasn’t trying to do ribbing, i was going for a seed stitch. i just forgot what it was called. this is the first time i’m attempting a pattern. i usually just knit straight through the whole piece. i thought that was getting boring.

i’m so sorry about your arthitis, cooksalot! i’ve dealt with that personally (rheumatoid). i hope it eases up soon!

so does that mean if i end with a purl and then i start the next row with a knit that i’ll end up ribbing instead? i’m having a hard time telling just by looking at the 3 or 4 rows i’ve done…

i’ve already pulled the whole thing out and casted on again twice now, and if it turns out this is ribbing, i’m just making a damn vertically ribbed scarf for tim then, because i’m not pulling it out again. i’d never finish it.

In order for you to have a seed stitch you need two rows of ribbing in one direction, then two rows of ribbing in the other. So, the first row you will knit then purl, the next row you will purl then knit, just keep repeating these rows. Here is a link that might help. After about six or eight rows you’ll be able to see the pattern forming which will help you keep the pattern going.

This is the way I think about seed stitch. Certain stitches “face” you and certain stitches “face away” from you. Knit and purl are basically the same stitch, except they face opposite ways. If you turn your work over, knits become purls and purls become knits.

Ribbing is nothing but columns of stitches that face toward you alternated with columns that face away from you, no matter if they were knits or purls when you made them. However, you can think of seed stitch as being less like columns and more like a checkerboard. Towards-away-towards-away-towards.

To make ribbing without a pattern, you would always make sure that the stitch you’re on is made in such a way as to “face” in the same direction as the stitch below it, to build up those columns. And the opposite is true for seed stitch – make sure you create a stitch that faces the opposite way from the stitch below it, to build up that “checkerboard.”

Seed stitch – it’s the anti-ribbing. :)

Here’s a baby blanket done in seed stitch. This would be a nice item to try out, and practice the seed stitch on.