Making ladders and lace holes by transferring stitches using the single eyed transfer tool
Abbreviations used:
Needle pushed right to back of needle bed = non working position (NWP)
Needle brought forward, top of hooks level with the gate pegs = working position (WP)
To transfer a stitch to an adjacent needle and make a lace hole (also called an eyelet).
- Check that the latches of the needles you wish to transfer the stitch from and to are open.
- Put the eye of the tool over the hook of the needle you wish to transfer the stitch from.
- Pull the needle right out, keeping the tool level with the bed of the machine. The stitch will slide down the needle opening the latch as it goes.
- Push the tool away from you, keeping the tool level with the bed so that the closes, the stitch slips onto the tool and the needle slides back into NWP.
- Without changing the position of the tool, bring your hand downwards, swivelling the tool on the edge of the bed so it points upwards.
- Keeping the tool in this position, take the tool OUTSIDE the gate pegs so that the stitch does not catch on them and slip the eye of the tool over the adjacent needle hook.
- Lift your hand swivelling the tool on the hook, so that the tool points down at an angle, and slip the stitch off the tool onto the new needle’s hook.
- Providing the stitch has remained between the hook and the latch, push the needle back into WP.
Tip: If the stitch has slipped behind the latch depending on your next knitting, it may drop off the needle. To prevent this happening either pull the needle fully out towards you, or use the tool to take it off the needle once again and reset it on the same needle so it is between the hook and the latch.
To make a lace hole, return push the needle left empty after the transfer into WP. This row of lace holes is made by transferring every other stitch across a row of knitting.
To make a ladder, after transferring the stitch the needle left empty after the transfer back into NWP. Instead of a lace hole you will get a series of ‘floats’ of yarn across the gap left by the non-working needle.
To return a ladder to knitting, bring the empty needle to WP. To return multiple needle ladders back to knitting, bring needles back to WP one at a time, knitting at least one row before bringing the next one forward.
To knit a series of vertical ladders, transfer alternate needles.
To knit a wide ladder, start by making one ladder and then transfer the edge needles outwards at both sides, knit one or more rows between each double transfer.
This exaample has one stitch ‘travelling’ across a wide ladder. To do this, transfer the stitch at the edge of the ladder one needle to the left every second row of knitting. Remember to push the empty needle to NWP before knitting.
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