Just When You Thought the Increases Were Over

You probably thought I had run the gamut with increases for knitting. But as in the old saying, 'There is more than one way to skin a cat', there are probably more ways to do increases even that I will have shown you here. I'll finish up talking about increases with two that are not commonly seen or used, but handy to know, nonetheless.

The first of these is called a Median increase. To work it on the right edge of the fabric, knit as usual into the stitch to be increased, but don't remove the original stitch from the left needle. Then take the tip of your right needle, poke it into the stitch one row below that stitch on your left needle from front to back. Knit into it, and drop the stitch on your left needle off. It will look something like this-



To work the same increase on the left edge of your fabric, put th etip of your right needle into the stitch one row below the next stitch on your left needle, and knit into it. Now knit into the stitch that is on the left needle, and drop it off.



The results on the right leave a tiny hole.



The results on the left look beautiful.



The next increases are worked right on the edge of the fabric. To work a Right Edge increase, knit the first stitch on the needle.



Then take the tip of the left needle, and coming from back to front, pick up the left leg of the stitch one row below the stitch on your right needle that you have just knitted. Knit this loop through the back of the stitch.



To work the increase on the left edge, work until you have just one stitch left on the left needle. Put the left needle into the stitch one row below this last stitch. It's a little tricky, but can be done. Now knit that loop through the front leg as normal, and then knit the last stitch on the needle.



Here are the results on the right, you can see the little jut out where the increase was made.



And on the left...



I was a bit under the weather last week, and was doing more reading that knitting - in one day I finished one book and read two others! But today I sent off my second pair of death socks in the Sock Wars contest. After killing my first target, she sent me the socks-in-progress she had been working on for her target. My task was then to finish that pair and kill her target as well. But when her SIPs arrived they were scented, and I wasn't able to work on them. Luckily I was allowed to substitute another yarn, and so I had to start all over with that pair. Lynn was kind enough to donate to me another ball of the Online Supersocke 100 sock yarn, this time in a beautiful orange color. I'm not normally an orange person, but I really loved this color, it reminded me of sweet potatoes! So here is the evidence of my second kill, winging their way to my next target even as we speak. I understand that Bridget is also taking part in Sock Wars, and I look forward to hearing how she is faring.