Can someone tell me about knitting in the round?
I’m in the UK and have been looking online for toy patterns. A lot of what are posted are American and knitted in the round. This isn’t something we do a lot in the UK. Could you explain to me, do you use a circular need for this, or do you use a set of double-ended needles (which I have to say I’ve never really tried). Or something else?
The ‘knit only’ thing never occurred to me – I can see the advantage of that! So if you are knitting a jumper and want to put the sleeves in, what happens? do you have to swap to straight needles?
I knit in the round all the time and I prefer double-pointed needles (DPNs) to circular ones, but you can use either.
Basically, you start by casting on stitches just as you would, but instead of turning to knit, you knit into the first stitch you cast on. This requires your cast on-stitches to curl around into a circle – thus the name. Either you cast them on to a circular needle, or you use DPNs evenly distributed around the shape. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. With a circular needle, you never have to worry about stitches falling off, but I find them awkward to work with (you may not, of course). With DPNs, it is simple to knit along the straight side of the needle, but you have to worry about the places where you switch from one needle to another (it is easy to get looser stitches there if you are not careful)
One nice benefit of knitting in the round is that you don’t ever have to purl for stockinette stitch (or, if you do it inside out, you don’t have to knit). I am a faster knitter than purler so knitting in the round speeds up my work.
Check out some tutorials; the Lion Brand website has a nice learn-to-knit tutorial which includes knitting in the round.
“Join in the round” Knitting Example
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