How-To Saturday M1R - M1L

In the land of knitting these are lovely paired increases

I teach a Magic Loop Toe Up Sock class in which I teach paired increases which are used to shape the toe of the sock. These can also be used in Sweater shaping, mitten shaping and pretty much any other shaping you can do in knitting. I use these instead of the bar increases (knitting into the front and back of a stitch) because the bar increase leaves a noticeable purl looking stitch on the stockinette side of your knitting.

M1L is translated to make 1 stitch that lays to the left,

and as you can probably assume, the M1R is the same, only it lays to the right.

Without further ado.

To M1R – We will be working with length of yarn that connects the stitch on your left needle to the stitch on your right needle – if pulled on you can follow this yarn length up and over your left needle.

Insert your left needle from back (side of knitting away from you) to front (side of knitting your looking at) under that length of yarn.

We will knit this stitch through the front of the stitch – it will be tight, so what I do, is scrunch my needles close together and use the index finger on my left hand to push the “stitch” forward on the needle, creating a gap for my needle to fit easily into.

Knit the stitch and it will twist over the top to the right.

To M1L – We will be working again with the length of yarn that connects the two needles.

Insert your left needle from front to back under the length of yarn. This will result again in an extra “stitch” that looks kind of wonky. This time, the stitch should be shorter in the back of the needle, longer in the front - the front part of the stitch will connect directly to the right needle.

(this is a sort of top-down, more of the back of the stitch type of picture)

This stitch will be knit again through the shorter part of the stitch, which is on the back of the needle this time - to do this, I insert my right needle into the stitch as though I was going to purl, and then flip it over the left needle to the back making it easier to get into that tight

stitch. When this stitch is knit, it will twist over the top to the left.

That is the short version of my explanation - I had pictures doctored with highlighted stitches and there were a couple of blips in family life this weekend that kept me from posting at home - so I will add them soon. otherwise, enjoy and good luck with your paired increases!

Happy Knitting!!!!