Pick Up and Knit or Just Pick Up: What’s the Difference?

Soon after you graduate from basic beginner patterns, you’ll encounter a situation where you need to pick up stitches along the edge of your knitting. Most often, the instructions will say “pick up and knit”. But sometimes the pattern simply tells you to pick up, or more explicitly, “pick up but do not knit”. What’s the difference? And what difference does it make in the knitting? Let’s make a swatch and see.

Pick Up and Knit

When the pattern tells you to “pick up and knit,” you will be working a new row of knitted stitches into the edge of the existing piece. For the purposes of demonstration, I’m working into the side edge of a garter stitch swatch. I’m picking up and knitting one stitch for every garter ridge (one stitch for every two rows of knitting). I’m using a contrasting color for the pick up and knit so it’s easy to see.

Here’s how it’s done:

Pick Up But Do Not Knit

Picking up stitches without knitting does not involve the working yarn. You will simply slip your needle under loops along the edge of your knitted fabric. To prevent excessive stretching of these loops, use a needle a couple of sizes smaller than you’ll use for whatever comes next.

Comparing the Results

In both cases (the two sides of a single swatch) I worked six rows of K1, P1 ribbing, then bound off in pattern.

The photos above show you the right side (top) and the wrong side (bottom) of my swatch. I prefer the look of the pick-up-and-knit edging on the right side, but it’s not particularly attractive on the wrong side. There is a distinct ridge of the contrast color showing at the base of the ribbing.

The pick-up-but-do-not-knit edge, however, looks nearly identical on both the right side and the wrong side. The join between the edging and the garter stitch base fabric isn’t quite as clean, but if I had not used a contrasting-color yarn, it would look just fine. For a truly reversible project, such as scarf, wrap, or blanket, where you want the wrong side to look just as good as the right side, pick-up-but-do-not-knit is the way to go.

What if the Pattern Just Says “Pick Up”?

If the pattern is not specific about which technique to use, then it’s knitter’s choice. Use your gauge swatch as a sample, try both methods, and decide which creates the look you prefer.

Thank you to Ancient Arts Yarns for providing the yarn used for these samples. This sample was made with Herlig.

Sandi Rosner is the technical content editor for all things yarn at Interweave. When she isn’t knitting, she usually has her nose in a book. You’ll find new technical content from Sandi nearly every week at www.interweave.com.