How to YO between a purl and a knit stitch

Hello again!

Well, this post is prompted by a few things.

1) I was working on my Alpaca Lace Legwarmers, which has a lot of YO's between purl and knit (and knit and purl) stitches, and I've always found that I actually have to think just a touch, or I'll screw the YO up and/or not make them consistent.

2) I was talking to a woman at Knit Night three weeks ago, and she was working on an eyelet pattern in seed stitch, and the YO between knit and purl (and vice-versa) was giving her grief.   I was actually working on my Legwarmers at the time, so I had the ability to show her what I was doing and how I remembered the distinction.

Well, with those two things, it occurred to me that I really should share, because it seems to me that there are some knitters who struggle with YOs between knit and purl stitches. 

So, onward!

Here is a row where you want a YO between purl and knit.

My sneaky little trick to remember this is:  when I was little, my mother taught me how to knit, but I learned YO as YF -- that is, an abbreviation for Yarn Forward -- which is, in a way, exactly the opposite of what you're doing.   (That will make sense, I promise!)

In this case, the yarn's at the front of the work, since you just finished a purl stitch.  You want to go all the way around the needle, and end with the yarn at the back of the work (since your next stitch is a knit stitch). So,  my trick to remember is you're always wrapping the yarn over the needle from front to back  (hence, the opposite of Yarn Forward towards you!)

So, you've got your yarn over the needle to the back, you then knit the stitch as per normal.  If this weren't a knit stitch, you would have the yarn continue around the needle to the front.

And there you have it.  It doesn't look like much now, but it'll show when it's knitted up on the next row.

 

Hope that helps!  It's a trick that's saved me a lot of grief in my knitting, and like I said, I figured I should share. :)

Author's note:  It took several tries to get the explanation I had in my head out onto the page in a way I thought worked.  If you viewed this post early, it probably didn't make a lot of sense.  Apparently, the heat is melting my brain . . .