Smoother Purling

When I learned to knit and then purl I was irritated by the difference in my purl stitches on the front side of my work when making stockinette. I tried my hardest to pull those stitches tighter. It got to the point, my mom still makes fun sometimes, that I disliked purling and would change things so that I could avoid it. I have even worked some projects knitting the right side of my work with one hand and then instead of turning I would use the other hand and knit the right side of my work again but from the other direction. There are some times that using that technique is helpful but I was outside of that bordering on the edge of ridiculous.

I have since gotten past it, mostly, and work purls as needed. I try not to make things with large areas of stockinette worked flat. That will all be changing now! I was reading Little Red in the City by Ysolda Teague for book club, and working through techniques that were new to me and she mentions that if you wrap the needle in the opposite direction when you purl, it uses less yarn and makes the stitches look nicer as well. It is called combination knitting.

I put it to the test and here are my results.

On the left you can see that I am “rowing out” on the purl rows and on the right you can see that it is smoother.

Here is a comparison photo of the back side on the work. This shows the spacing between the purl bumps is inconsistent on the left but is more consistent on the right.

The trickiest part is that on the return row or round you will need to work into the back loop of that stitch.

This is a complete change to how you were stitching before and I don’t suggest making this transition in the middle of a project. I am struggling a bit with that at that moment. I have multiple projects being worked in some sort of ribbing but I have decided to use this method in one of them. Check your gauge as well. The piece on the right in the photo has four more rows than the piece on left.

As I start new projects, it will be with the new method of purling, after swatching. This method changed my row/round gauge, so keep an eye out for that. It will probably do the same for you.

Below is a close up of on of the ribbing projects and you can clearly see in the spine stitches that every other stitch is different. One side of the spines is knit and the other side is purl. This will be one of my last projects not using combination knitting.

Old dogs, and knitters, can learn new tricks, ways of doing the same old thing.

Happy Making!