Interlocked Bind Off On A Knitting Machine

Posted on by

A few days ago, I was bouncing around the web and stumbled across a post at knitty where Jeny Staiman describes the Interlocked Bind Off.

I tried it out on one of my knitting machines and I absolutely love it. Here’s how…

IMG_0463JPG

Insert your yarn needle through the first stitch front to back and through the second stitch back to front. I’m right-handed so I’m working from right to left on the two needles to the left of the yarn tail. Also note that I’m working with the wrong side facing because this particular pattern instructed me to bind off in purl. Otherwise, I might turn the work before binding off, but it looks good either way.

IMG_0464JPG

Keeping the working yarn on top of the needles, pull the thread through the two stitches…

IMG_0465JPG

… until there’s just a little loop left.

IMG_0466JPG

Bring your needle and yarn up between the same two needles and through the loop front to back.

IMG_0467JPG

Pull on the thread to close the loop. Don’t pull too tight — just enough so the yarn lays flat.

IMG_0468JPG

Then pull the rest of the yarn through. Work your way across the bed one stitch at a time. In this example, I bound off needles 3 and 4 counting from the left. Next, I’ll bind off needles 2 and 3, then 1 and 2.

After binding off the last two stitches, don’t put your needle away just yet. Go through the stitch on needle 1 front to back… then pull the thread, stitching through the loop just like you did when you were binding off pairs of stitches.

IMG_0469JPG

This is what it looks like on the side facing you…

IMG_0470JPG

And this is what it looks like on the side away from you.

N.B. As I said earlier, this pattern instructed me to bind off from the purl side, but this bind off works for ribbed bind offs too. Simply reverse the direction of the needle when stitching into a purl stitch and when coming through the loop if your needle is leaving a purl stitch.

Machine Knitting: Increasing Evenly Across the Row

Posted on by

First, you need to figure out where the increases go. Suppose you have 98 needles in work and the pattern says increase 13 stitches evenly across the row.

Compute the approximate placement of the decreases using the following formula:


(current # stitches - # to increase) / # to increase
(98 - 13) / 13
85 / 13
6.53 rounded down = 6

This tells us we need to space our increases approximately 6 stitches apart.

Determine where to start based on whether you’re increasing by an even or odd number of stitches. If the number of increases is even, position the two center-most increases on either side of center. E.g., if the distance between increases is 6 stitches, the two center-most increases would be on needles 4L and 4R, leaving 6 stitches (3L to 3R) in between.

If the number of increases is odd, position the center increase on either side of center (1L or 1R).

Determine the placement of the other increases by counting off needles working from the center towards the edges. For this example, you would leave 6 stitches between each increase. Temporarily mark the location of each increases by pulling those needles to hold.

Use a garter bar or decker comb to move stitches right or left starting at the edge. You may have to make several passes if your decker comb is not wide enough to transfer all of the stitches at once.