Ribbing is a wonderful stitch pattern, but it has one significant drawback – the side edges of a fabric formed by any type of ribbing look like an unsightly mix of bumps and crooked stitches.
It is not a big issue when an edge is hidden in a seam, but it becomes quite an eyesore on scarves, blankets and other projects with visible side edges.
There are a number of ways to make the side edges of our projects neater (some of them are described in the “Neat Side Edges” book), but there is one method that looks remarkably well with ribbing.
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It is a variation of the tubular edging method and it forms a beautiful fully reversible frame for 1×1, 2×2, 3×3 and other types of ribbing.
Let’s see how this method works step by step.
SETUP
This edging is formed by two stitches at each side of the fabric. If you plan to add this edging to both side edges of your project, add four stitches to the number of stitches you cast on.
Then follow three steps described below starting from the very first row.
STEP 1
In this step, we’ll take care of the right edge of the fabric.
Bring the yarn to the front of the work and insert the tip of the right needle from right to left into the first stitch on the left needle.
Take the left needle out leaving this stitch on the right needle. We’ve just slipped one stitch purlwise with the yarn in front of the work.
Keep the yarn at the front of the work and purl the next stitch.
STEP 2
Now we can confidently work in the main pattern of the project until we get to the last two stitches of the row.
My swatch is made in “knit 1, purl 1” ribbing, so I repeated this sequence until I had only two stitches sitting on my left needle.
STEP 3
To turn the last two stitches of the row into a beautiful edge at the left side of the project, bring the yarn to the back of the work, and insert the right needle from right to left into the first stitch from the tip of the left needle.
Ease the left needle out slipping this stitch purlwise to the right needle.
With the yarn still at the back of the work, knit the last stitch.
That’s it. Repeat these three steps in every row and you will see that the sides of your project turn into lovely braids that make the ribbing roll beautifully from the front to the back of the fabric.
This edging looks exactly the same on both sides of the fabric, so it won’t mess up the look of your reversible projects, like scarves and blankets.
If you’d like to add this edging only to the right-hand side of the fabric (for example, to make a right front side of a cardigan), work step 1 in every right-side row, and step 3 in every wrong-side row.
To use this edging to treat only the left-hand side of the fabric, do the opposite – work step 1 in every wrong-side row and step 3 in every right-side row.
FINISHING OFF
When it is time to bind off stitches, we can bind off the first two stitches as purls, and the last two stitches as knits, but we’ll get a better result when we work the stitches of the edging together before we bind them off.
We start by purling the first two stitches of the row (the stitches that formed the edging at the right side of the fabric) together.
Then we bind off stitches of the main fabric in pattern (purling the stitches that look like purls and knitting the ones that look like knits). We do this until we get to the last two stitches of the row.
Finally, we knit the last two stitches together.
Pass the second stitch from the tip of the right needle over the first one to bind off the last stitch. Cut the yarn, insert the yarn tail into the last stitch and pull tight to secure.
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Because we slip the first and the second last stitches of each row, the edging is not as stretchy as the ribbing pattern. It is elastic enough to let the ribbing stay relaxed, but it won’t let it stretch out as you start to wear this project.
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This and 36 other in-depth tutorials are part of Knitting Collection #7.