How To Knit In The Round: Using Circular and Double Pointed Needles

If you've never worked in the round, here are some of the differences from flat kniting that you'll need to know before you get started.

Rounds, not rows. In regular flat knitting the stitches on your needles are referred to as rows. When working in a circle, they are referred to as rounds. It's just a matter of symantics, though. If you happen to slip up and say row (as I often do) the knitting police won't cart you away.

You only knit on one side of the work. In regular knitting you work across the needle on one side, then turn your project around to work across the stitches with the opposite side facing you. In circular knitting, the same side of the work will always face you. Why is this muy importante to know? It all has to do with knits and purls. When you make a knit stitch, you create a flat surface facing you and a bump on the back. When you purl, you make the bump on the front and the flat surface on the back. So, to create stockinette stitch in flat knitting you knit a row, turn your needle around and then purl a row. This makes sure that all the flats end up on one side, and all the bumps end up on the other. When knitting in the round, all you need to do to create stockinette is to knit every stitch of every round untill your brains fall out. Because you never turn your work around to the back side, all of your flats will always face the outside of the project.

Twisted stitches...not a rock band from the 80's. Many patterns written to be worked in the round, start with something like, "Cast on a million stitches and join, being careful not to twist your stitches." Let's dissect that sentence, shall we? First, when they say to join, they mean to start knitting your stitches in such a way as to create a complete circle. No turning your needle(s) around and going back across the stitches you just cast on. Instead, you butt the last stitch you just cast on (which should have your working yarn attached to it) up against the first stitch you cast on. Then, instert your needle into the fist stitch and knit it with the working yarn. This will connect your cast on stitches into a circle...more on this later. The second part of the sentence is crucial: "being careful not to twist your stitches" If your stitches have twirled themselves around your needle(s), then when you join your work into a circle, you'll have a mess. You won't be creating a perfect tube, you'll be creating a twisted mobius*-looking weirdness. The preventative? Lay your needle(s) on the table and take a gander at your stitches before joining. All of them sould be facing the same way, with the edge-bit created by casting on, facing the inside of the circle. This way you'll be much happier than the preson who got ten rounds into the project only to discover that (s)he's got to rip it all out and start over. And maybe cry a little bit, too.

*What's a mobius? It's a twisted circular strip with no inside or outside. Cat Borhdi is the queen of mobius knitting. We'll talk about her books later.

Behold, the knitting Madonna. Painted by Bertram c1390, this is the oldest known record of circular knitting. In it, Mary is almost finished with a seamless, bottom-up sweater on double pointed needles. She happily knits away while her little tyke chats with some passing angels.

Up until the invention of the circular needle (we'll talk more about these later), this was the only way to knit a tubular object without a seam. Double pointed needles (or DPN's as they are often called) allow the knitter to knit in a continous spiral. Think of it as a Slinky made out of interlocking loops of yarn.