![]() ![]() It’s good to choose a colour that contrasts well with the background colour of your knitted piece and the weight of the yarn needs to be at least equal to the weight used in the background knitting. Thread the needle with a long length of your chosen yarn. It is better to use a slightly blunt-nosed needle as a sharp needle can split stitches in the knitted fabric and make the whole process a bit more difficult. You will find it easier to work duplicate stitch neatly if your piece of knitting that lies flat so if you’re unsure then best block first. To block or not to block: It’s entirely up to you. For instance in this little heart below I’ve added half a stitch at either end of the top row in order to smooth the curve of the top of the heart. Using duplicate stitch allows you to cheat a little by duplicate stitching just half a stitch.It is not recommended to use a yarn that is thinner (or substantially thicker) than the yarn used for the knitting. For instance you could use a fluffy yarn to work an animal design. Using different yarn types: When using duplicate stitch you can mix different yarn types which might cause problems with tension if used during intarsia knitting.If you’ve knitted in intarsia the whole thing would have to be unpicked. You can also unpick to any point if you realise you’ve made a mistake – just gently undo half a stitch at a time without pulling too hard so as not to pucker the earlier stitches. Unpicking: With duplicate stitch it’s easy to unpick the design completely if you don’t like it any more and your knitted piece is still intact once you remove the design.Using lots of colours: When you knit intarsia using any more than 3 colours it becomes very complicated (and tangled) but working a design in duplicate stitch means that you can incorporate many more colours.It works well for any design that would normally use intarsia and there are some advantages that duplicate stitch has over intarsia: It’s a stitch I use a lot especially on the front of bunny jumpers and some of the more complex dress designs. Duplicate stitch (also known as Swiss darning) is a useful technique for adding a surface design onto an already knitted piece. ![]()
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