Bumpity Bump

The big piece on the left is my gauge swatch for a yet to be designed project. The little piece on the right is my swatch experimenting with slight variations on how to work the little bobble.




The basic maneuver is to make five stitches out of one by knitting (loosely) into the front, then the back, then the front, then the back, then the front of one stitch before dropping the stitch off the left needle. Then the first four stitches made are lifted over the last one and dropped off the right needle, leaving just one.

It occurred to me to wonder if it would make a difference whether I passed them over starting with the closest stitch to the end, or the one farthest away, or lifted them up and over all together (yeah, I'm geeky that way - and I swear I've seen directions for any of these as well as directions that don't specify at all). So I noodled away. And while there may be some difference in the looks of the final results, I didn't find enough difference to think it makes much matter.

What did seem to help the bobble stand out a bit (and your results may vary) was this: After I finished the maneuver I put the remaining stitch back onto the left needle, then slipped it knitwise onto the right needle, thus twisting it. This seemed to tighten things up a bit and help push the bobble to the front. But I could just be imagining this.