A recent e-mail asked how to deal with leading or trailing yarn-overs (YO's) when starting lace projects on double-pointed needles(dpn's). The problem: a YO as the first or last stitch on a dpn wants to slip off, plus, the needles themselves want to slip out.
I'm guessing others have these problems too.
The YO's in this increase round follow a repeating pattern of *YO, K1. This means a YO has to be the leading or trailing stitch when working on double pointed needles.
Shift
First trick is, simply shift the YO away from being the first or last st by slipping stitches between needles until the YO is safely between two ordinary stitches of some kind. This is also the trick for keeping a beginning of round (BOR) marker in place when using dpn's.
However, when there are YO's every other stitch, as in early increase rounds (photo above) or where the entire round is netting (*YO/K2tog, repeating), this trick does not work.
"Yarn-over-izing" the traveling strand
Here's a second, better trick, which works on every round.
When the YO is the first or last stitch on the dpn, don't make the YO on the current round. Instead, simply SKIP any YO in the corner where two dpn's meet. On the NEXT round, where a YO is supposed to be, there will instead be a "traveling strand" (red) meaning, where the yarn traveled from one needle to another in the row below. The trick is: pick up this strand, place it over the left (holding) needle as a YO, and work into it.
3: traveling strand, now turned into a YO, is placed on the upper needle
4: YO is knitted
5: final product, the strand turned into the missingYO, with the stitch in the row above now knit into it. The red arrows point to other YO's coming up.
With this trick, the YO gets laid on the needle one row later, but is knit into in the same round as all the other YO's. Despite this being a one-row process, the pick-up anchors the YO into the row below, where it belongs.
--The disadvantage of this trick is you have to remember to "yarn-over-ize" the strand, meaning, pick it up and place it over the left (holding) needle (left needle = upper needle in the photos). And, you have to put it on the left needle with the correct arm forward--look at the other YO's, to be sure this one matches. BUT! If you HAD put a YO there, it, too, would very likely have slipped off, meaning, you'd STILL have to remember to put it back on the needles with the correct arm forward, and then knit into it.
--The advantage (and this is why it is the better trick) is that there's no YO slipping off to form a loose strand. Yarn-over-izing makes the work neater. What was a disadvantage (big YO's which slip off) becomes an advantage (YO's all neat and tidy, no slipping).
This second trick works especially well for "regular" lace where there is a plain catch-up round. For "true" lace (YO's every row) it still works, but there's more to remember.
Two needles for early rounds
The photos show the stitches for early rounds split between TWO holding needles, not FOUR. Using two and knitting with a third instead of four holding needles and knitting with a fifth is an additional trick for starting early rounds of circular knitting featuring YO's at the beginning or end of a dpn.
The switch to four needles comes when there are more stitches on the needles--say, 16 or so stitches on each of the two needles. At that point, switch to eight stitches on four needles.
Usually, the yarn traveling between only two needles would make a worse ladder than traveling between four, because with two needles, there is further to travel, meaning, a bigger, sloppier YO, or a ladder in non-YO rounds. However, when combined with the yarn-over-izing trick of making a YO of the traveling strand, the YO's with two needles are the same size as the others,
The other big advantage is, there are only two strands to remember to pick up as YO's, not four. This also means more YO's can be made in the regular way over the needle (red arrows at photo 5), because there are only half as many leading or trailing YO's.
Plus, you know, fewer needles clanging the floor, fewer sailor words spicing the air.
--TK
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