Photo Tutorial: Neater Knit to Purl Yarnovers

My pattern Ticklepenny, that is in Knitty Deep Fall 2014 issue, uses knit to purl yarnovers. See the panels of leaves down the side of the socks...

The normal way of doing this can make a yarnover which is larger than a purl to knit yarnover. When they are near one another then it can make it look a little unbalanced. 

There’s a little trick you can do to make them neater – basically, wrap the yarnover clockwise around the needle instead. This does mean you have to remember on the next row/round and either re-seat it or work into the back of it.

The bottom leaf has normal knit to purl yarnovers and the top leaf has the neater version (there's not a huge difference in this example but it can be more obvious depending on the yarn and your knitting style).

I’ll explain in more detail.

A normal knit to purl yarnover is made by bringing the yarn under the right needle, then…

...over the top of the needle and back under again and because it is worked by effectively going around the needle twice, there is extra yarn and the yarnover is bigger than a purl to knit yarnover.

So for a neater knit to purl yarnover -

1. Normally, the yarn would be at the front for a purl stitch, leave it at the back and insert your needle into the next stitch as if to purl.

2. Purl the stitch. By not bringing the yarn to the front you’ve created a backwards yarnover before the purl.

3. It should look like this. The stitch below is being pulled up by the shorter backwards yarnover.

4. The next step is how to deal with it on the next round/row. It looks the same on the next row,  whether you are working in the round or flat. It looks like this.

5. Work the first stitch and then it should look like the next picture, with the backwards yarnover and the purl stitch that has been pulled up on the left needle.

6. First method is to knit into the back of the stitch, insert right needle from front to back and knit the yarnover (if you need to purl your yarnover, purl through the back loop instead), once this has been worked the purl stitch relaxes and you can then purl it. I sometimes find this tricky to see so I tend to drop the yarnover and re-seat it in its correct position.

7. Second method - drop just the yarnover from the needle.

8. It will then look like this.

9. Pick up the yarnover by going from front to back with the left hand needle…

10. Repeat as necessary...