In this video, I’m going to show you how to create a slip one stitch. You’ll normally see this written as SL1. You may see this in many patterns to create a nice rib design look or something within the body of the pattern.
This creates a prominent stitch that projects a little bit larger than a regular stockinette stitch, as you can see right next to it. There are a couple of regular stitches, and then you can clearly see the slip stitches.
There are two ways to slip a stitch like this. You can slip it knitwise, where you insert your needle as if to knit and then just pull it off, or purlwise, where you insert your needle as if to purl and slip it off.
Normally, when a pattern calls for a slip one and doesn’t reference which way, it’s going to be a purlwise slip because it stands out a little bit more. You can see it right here—this one is the purlwise slip, and this one is the knitwise slip. The knitwise slip gives it a little twist, so if you wanted something with a simple look and just a little twist, that would be nice. But if you want it to stand out more, the purlwise slip would be best.
So I’m going to show you how to do this. I’ve got two knits and then a slip for each one. What I’ve done with this swatch is knit one slip knitwise and the next one purlwise.
I’m going to insert the needle as if I’m going to knit, but you don’t knit—you just pull that off. Then I’ll get to the next one. On this one, I’m going to insert my needle as if to purl, leaving the yarn behind, and just remove it without actually purling.
Again, insert as if to knit and remove that stitch. Then the other way, insert as if to purl and remove. Again, as if to knit and remove. Knit a couple more, and I’m getting to the end. As if to purl, remove.
Now I’ll quickly show you what it looks like on the back. When you turn your work over to continue in pattern, you would purl all these stitches if you were knitting flat. If you were knitting in the round, you would just knit the next row.
So I’m going to slip that one off. You can see how I just wrap that yarn past that slip stitch to knit the next one. In this case, I’ll knit it, then knit the next one.
Now here’s the next one. This one was slipped knitwise, so you can see the stitch is twisted versus the purlwise one. I’ll show you the purlwise slip again—this one does not look twisted.
Again, the purlwise slip stands out a little bit more, so it’s used more often. Then you would either knit in the round or purl if you’re working back and forth.
I’ll get to the end, turn it around, and show you again what it looks like. When I’m done, I’ll also show you a couple of examples of finished projects.
So that is how you slip one stitch while knitting.
I’ve got a couple examples. This one is one of my patterns. I knit two here, and in this case, I purled on each side of the slipped row. That kind of frames it and makes it stand out a little bit more. It gives a nice rib design when you’re doing slip stitches.
This one is slipped in every row going across. You slip one, and then on the next row you knit it. So you would knit around. This is a little different take on a slip stitch. For this one, you bring the yarn in front, slip the stitch, then bring the yarn around the front of that slip stitch. That creates this little bar right here, which is another way of doing a slip stitch.
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