Knitting the Tuck Stitch. A Tutorial...

not long ago i was the happy purchaser of some gorgeous Malabrigo yarn in a shade called purple mystery; a delicious, variegated, deep grape color and i finally decided on turning it into a felted purse designed by Nora J. Bellows called the Bedouin Bag. it's a roomy number done up in rounds of stockinette and ridges and finished off with a thick leather strap.

the directions are simple and fairly easy to follow ~ if you can knit, purl, pick up stitches and are comfortable with knitting in the round ~ except for the decorative ridge part which was a bit confusing to me because of the way it was written:

Special Techniques: Ridge Pattern
Rounds 1-8 (12, 14): Knit around.
Rounds 9-12 (13-16, 15-18): Purl around.
Round 13 (17, 19) [Tuck Round]: *Insert the tip of the
right-hand needle in next stitch knitwise, pick up the
back of the corresponding stitch 5 rounds below, and
knit the 2 stitches together; repeat from * around.
Repeat these 13 (17, 19) rounds for pattern.

ummmm....i'm sorry.... "what the what?"

now, after 15+ years of knitting i consider myself to be more on the advanced side of things but for some reason this stumped me a bit; i couldn't visualize what i was supposed to do. a bit of brain wracking and finagled term searches on google yielded directions on the tuck stitch (which can also be called the welt stitch) which adds a decorative rolled ridge to your knitted item (note, this stitch is different from the knitted purl ridge).

here's a little photo tutorial to help you learn this fun stitch. remember, i'm knitting in the round.

 

 

 

i did come across a video tutorial on how to accomplish this stitch the way it's written for the pattern, but i think it's much easier to do it this way; the finished product still looks the same. all-in-all, it's a relatively simple design and i'm excited to see what it looks like after i felt it. i'll be sure to post some pics when i'm done.