Slipped Stitches and Mosaic Patterns

Slipped Stitches: A Fascinating and Fun Knitting Technique

Slipping stitches is an easy, fast and interesting knitting technique well worth trying out. The technique can be used either in a solid color, or two or more colors, to create beautiful effects in your knitting projects.

In fact, it can be used in many different ways to draw strands of yarn up, across, or diagonally over the face of your knitting project.

The key to getting the slip-stitch patterns correct, is to keep the yarn in the right position when slipping the stitches. Therefore, there are two terms you need to know when slipping stitches: wyif and wyib.

So, what do wyif and wyib mean? Wyif means that you need to keep the yarn on the side of the knitted fabric that is facing you. Conversely, wyib means that you will have to keep the yarn on the side that is away from you.

Mosaic knitting is just color-change, slip-stitch patterns with a sophisticated design with complex geometric patterns.

However, even though the patterns themselves might be complicated, the actual technique of using slipped stitches is not.

We have a comprehensive article on mosaic knitting that explains the ins and outs of this technique. You can find the article here: All You Need To Know About Mosaic Knitting

Unlike Fair Isle and stranded knitting, when knitting color-change, slip-stitch patterns, you are not carrying two or more strands with you along an entire row or round.

Actually, you only knit with one color at the time. Furthermore, you are only changing colors at the end of a row while carrying unused strands up along the side of your project.

So, why not give this fascinating, yet fun, technique a go?