To make the side edges of our blankets, scarves, and shawls nice and neat, we often add selvedge stitches. The easiest and most commonly used ones are slip-stitch selvedges. We make them by adding one stitch at each side of the fabric and slipping one of those stitches in every row, forming beautiful chains of elongated stitches at each edge.
The side edges decorated by slip-stitch selvedges look great until we add yarn in a different colour to make a stripe.
Because we slip the first or last stitch in the row when we change the colour, the slipped stitch shows off the old colour until we work that stitch in the next row. This delay forms a colour jog at one edge, and the jog becomes more visible when we add several stripes.
Not really an eyesore, but definitely something we would like to improve. Especially if improving it is unbelievably easy. All we need to do is knit or purl the “usually slipped” stitch in the row when we change the colour.
Let’s see how we do it with three most common types of slip-stitch selvedges.
SLIP-STITCH SELVEDGES #1
With this kind of slip-stitch selvedges, we slip the first stitch purlwise with the yarn at the back of the work and purl the last stitch of every row.
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When we don’t care about the jog, we keep the yarn at the back of the work and insert the right needle from right to left into the first stitch, then we take the left needle out, slipping this stitch to the right needle.
Then we pick the strand in a new colour and work all stitches according to the pattern instructions. When we get to the last stitch of the row, we purl that stitch.
After we work a few rows, we notice that the slipped stitch forms a jog. Not good.
To avoid that jog, we need to knit the first stitch instead of slipping it, and we do it with the yarn in a new colour.
Then we use the new colour to work to the end of the row and purl the last stitch. As you see from the photo below, this simple trick eliminates the jog completely.
The selvedge stitch did become smaller, but because it is in the same colour as the rest of the stitches in that row, the side edge looks more consistent than the edge with a colour jog.
SLIP-STITCH SELVEDGES #2
This type of selvedge stitches is a mirror version of the slip-stitch selvedges that we’ve just discussed.
This time, we form the same neat chains of elongated stitches by slipping the first stitch purlwise with the yarn in front of the work and knitting the last stitch of every row.
When we do it without taking any precautions against the colour jog, we bring the yarn to the front at the beginning of each row and slip the first stitch purlwise to the right needle.
Then we use the strand in a new colour to work the rest of the stitches, including the last stitch of the row that is knitted.
This results in a jog that looks exactly the same as the jog we observed when we discussed the first type of slip-stitch selvedges.
To keep that jog out of our project, we should work the first stitch instead of slipping it. Because at the beginning of a row the strand is at the front of the work, it will wrap the edge if we move this strand to the back. This yarn wrap will mess up our beautiful neat edge, so we have to take a different approach.
To avoid creating a yarn wrap at the beginning of the row, we start by slipping the first stitch purlwise to the right needle.
Then we move the strand to the back through the space between the first and second stitches of the row.
Finally, we return the first stitch of the row to the left needle.
The strand is safely tucked out of the way, and we insert the tip of the right needle from right to left into the first stitch, wrap the needle with the strand in a new colour, and pull the wrap though, knitting this stitch through the back loop.
Then we work to the end of the row and knit the last stitch, as usual.
This simple trick removes the jog completely, and the edges look consistent even though the first stitch of this row is not elongated any more.
SLIP-STITCH SELEVEDGES #3 – SILESIAN SELVEDGES
This same solution works for the third most common type of selvedge stitches – Silesian Selvedges.
This method also forms chains of elongated stitches at the side edges of our projects, and it happens because we knit the first stitch of every row through the back loop and slip the last stitch of every row with the yarn in front of the work.
Usually, when we change the colour of the yarn, we insert the right needle from right to left into the first stitch, wrap the tip of the needle with the strand in a new colour, and pull this wrap through, knitting this stitch through the back loop.
Then we work all stitches according to the pattern instructions. When we get to the last stitch of this row, we bring the yarn to the front of the work and slip the last stitch purlwise to the right needle.
The first stitch of the row now looks great, but the last stitch is in the old colour, and this difference is clearly visible.
Now we know that it happened because the last stitch was slipped. And now we know what we should do to prevent this small but annoying issue. We need to work the last stitch. Because we normally slip this stitch with the yarn in front of the work, we should purl this stitch in the row when we change the colour of the yarn.
As expected, this simple tweak removes the jog and makes the colour stripe even, without any stitches in a different colour sticking at the side edges of the fabric.
To make this solution work, we don’t change the pattern instructions in every row.
All we need to do is make a slight adjustment to the way we work selvedge stitches in the row when we change the colour of the yarn. The rest of the rows are worked as usual, without any tweaks and adjustments.
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This and 31 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #8.