Don’t worry, its easy!
The Old Way
Ribbing can be a great way to begin a project, like a hat, or end one, like sleeves on a sweater. It can be an important part of knitting, and, I think, even more important to do it well. I’ve been frustrated in the past with my ribbing feeling loose and gappy, not tight and stretchy, like I want it to be. That is, until I found Button & Blue’s tighter ribbing tutorial here.
When I began using this method, my projects started looking the way I had hoped they would with the old way! And, it’s so easy to do!
Here are some links to the materials I’m using in the video below, if you’d like to use what I’m using: Yarn used in the swatches above, Yarn I’m using for the hat below, Bamboo set of needles from the video
You can see in the image above, that the rib stitches look stretched out, in the old method, and in the new method, at right, they’re nice and tight, and clean looking.
How To Knit Clean Tight Ribbing
To make this nice clean ribbing, we’re going to knit each stitch backwards. Simple, right?
It actually is, I promise!
For the knit stitches, insert your right needle into the back of the stitch, instead of the front, like the pic at right, wrap your yarn around, and draw it back through like normal. See? Pretty easy! To be fair, that was the easy one, but the purl is not much harder.
To make the purl, bring the yarn to the front, between your needles, then insert your right needle, from back to front, catching the back leg over your right needle, as in the picture below. Wrap your yarn over, and bring back through like normal.
Check out the video below. If you need some clarification or comment below and I’ll do my best to help you out!
Now, in the original tutorial, she recommended when doing a 2×2 rib, to knit the second knit or purl normally. But, I found that it loosened off the second stitch making my work look wonky, so I would continue to work all the stitches backwards, for the duration of the ribbing.
I’m going to make a separate post talking specifically about how to knit a hat so click here to check out Part 1! Join our email list to be notified when new blog posts and YouTube tutorials are posted.
Give this a try and let me know how you like it in the comments below. Post a pic of your work on Instagram and tag us @purple.rose.crafts and we’ll share the pics to our stories! We love looking at your creations!
Thanks so much for reading and learning with us!
