Hi Knitters!
There are a lot of patterns where you are asked to suspend (hold) a certain number of stitches and later return them to your knitting needle. For example, when knitting the cable stitch or knitting the collar of a project, suspending (holding) stitches temporarily on an extra needle is a common technique.
Even though it might seem tricky at first, it is not complicated at all to slide your stitches onto an extra needle and to return them later. As an extra needle you can use a cable needle, or if you don´t have one, a normal pen or pencil, which will do the job as well 🙂 Here’s how you do it, step by step:
1. Knit normally until you get to the point in your pattern where you are asked to slide a certain number of stiches onto an extra needle. As you can see in our example we have casted off the previous stitches in this row.
Get your pen or cable needle out and make sure that it is long enough for the number of stitches you want to suspend.
3. Carefully slide the stitches that you want to move onto your pen (or cable needle). Make sure you do this purlwise to keep your stitches straight.
Keep on knitting according to your pattern.
4. When you get to the point in your pattern where you are supposed to work with the stitches you have on hold, you have two options: You can either slide them onto your knitting needle or you can work them directly from your extra needle.
In this case, we have knitted them directly from our pen, so we got them straight back onto our right knitting needle. Now you have returned your stitches and they have been integrated back into your project. All you have to do now is keep on knitting normally, according to your pattern.
As you can see, it is much easier as it seems to suspend stitches temporarily and to return them later. In many cases, with this technique you avoid having to sew together single pieces of your project, giving it a much more professional look.
For this post we have used our 15mm beechwood knitting needles as well as our 100% peruvian wool in grey.
