In the Minamo pullover, I used Twisted Yarn Over increases, and not just the good old regular Yarn Over (YO) but the Backwards Yarn Over (BYO) too – but knit into the back leg and the front leg respectively to twist the holes shut.
Increasing like this might seem needlessly different when the usual Make One (M1) increases are a lot better known and usually suffice, but I think Twisted Yarn Over increases are better suited for the contiguous set-in sleeve construction.
The shoulder of the contiguous set-in sleeve is built up by increasing every row or round on either side of the shoulder seam. The Make One increases are made by picking up the strand between two stitches and knitting into it. By increasing, you’re tightening the stitches from which you just grabbed a little bit of yarn. When you’re doing this every single row, those little bits of stolen length start to have an impact – the shoulder seam can become tight and the stitches growing out of it a little ruffly.
The Twisted Yarn Over increases essentially work up to the same thing as the Make One increases, except the strand into which you knit is a yarn over made in the previous row – giving plenty of yarn to make a new stitch into without taking from its neighbours and influencing your gauge.
Note: The following sections are directional, so if you’re a left-handed (mirror) knitter, skip ahead to where I’ve flipped things for you!
Left leaning: M1L vs YO
The M1L stitch is made by entering the strand between the stitches below from the front to the back, and knitting into the back leg to twist this strand shut. Now check this: the strand, once on the needle, looks like a YO – and it would be, if you’d done a YO in the previous row.
I don’t think I need to tell you this, but the YO is done by bringing the yarn to the front, over the top of the needle and to the back – like scooping up yarn for a regular knit stitch. In the next row, work into the back leg to twist the YO shut.
Right leaning: M1R vs BYO
The M1R stitch is made by entering the strand between the stitches below from the back to the front, and knitting into the front leg to twist this strand shut. The strand, as you’ve probably figured out by now, looks like a BYO because it almost is!
The BYO is done with the opposite motion of a regular YO – by bringing your yarn from the back up over the top of needle to the front, all the way to the back again. It’s the mirror of a regular YO. In the next row, work into the front leg to twist the BYO shut.
A comparison
These two swatches compare the M1R and the Twisted BYO increases, done on every row. The swatch with the M1R increases is a little bit tighter looking and actually a bit wrinkled. Yes, it’s a small difference, but I think it’s worth it. If you don’t, or don’t like the Twisted Yarn Over increases, feel free to swap them out! They can look a little loose sometimes, especially if you’re working with a yarn with less give or in a looser gauge, so I’d advise doing a few of these increases when you swatch.
Right and Wrong Side
A YO on the Right Side is a YO on the Wrong Side of your work, always. This is because a YO (and of course a BYO) is like a helix around your needle, and helices are chiral – no matter which way you look at them, they’ll always be spiralling in the same direction.
Sometimes knitters talk about clockwise and anti-clockwise in regards to wrapping yarn around a needle, but I don’t like that terminology because those get switched depending on perspective, up or down the needle.
So: if you’ve got a YO on your needle and flip the work over to the other side, it will still look like a YO – therefore you always work YOs at the same spot, and BYOs in their own spot elsewhere. The same applies for M1L/M1R increases.
This funny looking swatch represents a part of the shoulder in Minamo and – following the construction in the pattern – I worked only Twisted YO increases in grey (left), and only Twisted BYO increases in beige (right), on both the RS and the WS of the work.
Remembering
I’m a big fan of mnemonics when knitting, especially if it means I don’t have to glance down at my pattern every single row. For example, when making this swatch, I knew that the BYO was done on the beige side. If I’d been using markers, I might have used a blue marker for the BYO and a yellow marker for the YO.
Another thing I like is having visual confirmation that what I’m doing is correct. A nice thing about Twisted Yarn Overs as increases is that, when working them on every row, if you are coming up to a YO that you did last row, you know you’ll be doing another YO at this spot. If you’re heading towards a BYO, you’ll do another one of those there. This confirmation disappears when there are rows between the increases, but it’s still an good trick to help get into the groove of these increases.
Will this work with the knit-in-the-back-leg (I think I use what is now called Combined Continental ) method?
Yes! As long as you are creating the yarn overs the same way as described in the post (YO: bringing the yarn to the front, then over the needle and to the back; BYO: from back to front), the leg you knit into to twist the yarn overs shut is the same – into the back leg for a YO, into the front leg for a BYO – and the resulting increased stitches will lean the correct way too.