How to Pick Up Knitting Stitches using Two Knitting Needles - Knitting Video Tutorials by Astraknots

How to pick up stitches with two knitting needles

Pick Up With Sticks
Pick Up And Knit
When a pattern says "Pick up and Knit", it really means the same thing as "Pick up". The action of picking the stitches up is basically a knit, i.e. you wrap the yarn as if to knit, and you go through the front of the work. In some cases, it might specify "Pick up as if to purl" in which case you'd need to come in through the back, and wrap your yarn like a purl stitch.

Pick Up Using Two Knitting Needles
Use your second needle to insert into the work where you want to pick up a stitch. This will give you leverage to pull the yarn through the work to add a stitch. It is as if you were just knitting a regular stitch on your left hand needle, only this stitch is the edge of your work where you've inserted your left hand needle.

Picking Up Stitches For Socks
After you turn heel on a sock, and you've finished knitting back and forth for the heel flap, your pattern will probably tell you to pick up a certain number of stitches so you can continue working in the round.
It is important to know how to pick up the stitches so that you don't end up with extra holes. You can always pick up more stitches than the pattern says, and just add some extra decreases later to get back to the right number of stitches.

Picking Up Stitches For Sweaters
Picking up stitches for a sweater may occur when you go to add a neck piece, collar, border, cuff or even sleeves. Your pattern may specify how many stitches should be picked up along how many rows since you aren't always picking up the stitches in the same direction they were knit.

Picking Up Stitches For Thumbs
When knitting mittens or gloves, you'll often either put stitches on a holder for a thumb, or knit onto waste yarn that is removed later for a thumb hole. In the case of the former, you will often need to pick up some stitches. I recommend picking up a couple extra than the pattern says and adding some extra decreases to avoid thumb holes.

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