Knitting Tips: Ribbing

1. Flipping Ribbings
2. Twisted Rib in the Round
3. Corrugated Ribbing
4. Chenille Ribbing
5. Stranded Ribbing Flipping
6. English Rib

Rose 1/28/03

Hi all, last week I posted about a couple of sweaters I have with ribbings that flip up and asked what to do about that. Thanks to all who answered. The consensus was:

• reduce needle size for ribbings, but not necessarily stitch count.
• make ribbings at least 1.5" - 2" deep.
• make sure your garment is not too tight (I'll join Weight Watchers, but this also happens on my newborn's sweater.)

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2. Twisted Rib in the Round

Joan Schrouder 2/17/03

How would one put a twist in a k2,p2 ribbing when knitting in the round? It is supposed to give a tighter rib and more professional looking. Would you knit in the back every other row? Has anyone done it this way when knitting in the round?

There are thousands of knitters on this list; my bet is that someone, somewhere has done positively *everything* known to knitting! (now if we could just find her!!

There are different versions of twisted ribs. You didn't specify which one you're considering, so what follows may not be the exact thing you need. Know that you can modify it to fit whatever you're doing.

If the twist patt done flat is for the twisting to be done on alternate rows, and the intermediary rows are just K2, P2, then that's the exact thing you do in the rnd, making sure that you're K'ing the K's and P'ing the P's.

Interesting - I don't know that I've ever seen or done twisted ribbing in a 2x2 patt; it's more common in a 1x1. Hmmmmm, that could turn out pretty cool!

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Joan Schrouder 3/6/03

I am making fair isle mittens for my daughter, and am having trouble with the corrugated ribbing. The purl part is raised way up over the knit part rather than the other way around. ???? I tried switching the purl yarn to the other hand, but it didn't make any difference. Any ideas?

For those of you not familiar with this, Linda is doing a rib where the K sts are one color and the P sts are another. It's a common way of ribbing in some Scandinavian and Fair Isle patterns.

Linda, this is the nature of corrugated ribbing. Because the unused color yarn is being stranded behind the P sts, it keeps them from recessing in their customary fashion. As a result, corrugated ribbing sometimes acts more like stockinette than rib, IOW it can curl. Usually blocking will help some of it, and will flatten down the purls as well so that they don't stick way up. In the one instance where it didn't for me "cure the curl", I hemmed the rib to keep it from flipping up. In my experience, 1x1 rib curls more than 2x2. The tighter you work, the more it will curl.

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Joan Schrouder 3/25/03

A couple of options --

1. use your chenille in the patt you've already selected, but use an alternate non-chenille cotton in a complimentary color for the ribbings.

2. use an alternate border besides ribbing such as garter, seed, etc. You could even knit sideways garter, so that it would give the vertical illusion of a rib. Or how about a lace edging knit sideways first for as long as the sweater is arnd? Then knit up sts from the straight edge for your tunic.

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Joan Schrouder 4/4/03

It's not unusual for stranded border to curl a little, even when the borders are worked in ribs or garter, like above. This is because the stranding runs behind the sts and prevents them from receding like they usually do. Thus the fabric behaves more like stockinette, and we all know that stockinette curls. FWIW I've found K1, P1rib curls more than 2x2 rib.

You can hem it by turning your work over so that your cast-on is the "top" edge, right side facing you. Using 1 color only, you can K up 1 st in each cast on st. If there is a little outline st, ie you used long-tail cast-on, you can knit up a st behind the outline st. Then work stockinette for as long as your border, then whip stitch the open sts down to the fabric with a sharp ndl.

A refinement - Use a much larger ndl and only K up every other st. The hemming fabric will be gauzier, ergo thinner, so as not to add any more bulk. If K'ing up every other st looks uneven, K up every st, then dec by 50% on next row.

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Joan Schrouder 4/8/03

I know it's probably so much easier than I'm making it out to be, but no matter what I do, this isn't looking like the pictures. It says *K1, 1 double knit by knitting in the stitch below*. I'm knitting the first stitch, then inserting the needle into the center of the stitch below the next stitch on the needle. It doesn't look right. I greatly appreciate any help anyone can give me on this, as I am trying to swatch for a sweater and this is driving me crazy.

Of course I'm puzzled by what "doesn't look right". It's probable that you're doing it correctly, but you have to do it for several rows before the pattern becomes apparent. When you K in the st in the row below, it does cause that st to unravel, so that your completed K st has both the st from the row below AND the looser strand across from the unraveled st captured into it. That may look really strange to you, if you haven't done this kind of st before.

This sounds like what I've often seen referred to as Fisherman's Rib, Shaker Rib and Brioche St. Elizabeth Zimmermann called it Prime Rib. Sometimes it's worked as you state; other times it's done by *YO, Sl 1, then K tog the YO and Sl 1 from the row below*. Essentially they're the same.

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