Working out Kinks and Fingering Yarn

Here’s how you make garter in the round:

Rnd 1: K.
Rnd 2: P.
Rep Rnds 1 &2 for pattern.

If you’ve ever actually made garter in the round, you notice a little seam at the place where one round ends and the next begins. You don’t mind. In fact, you like it because it’s got a cool faux-sew feel, so you happily garter in the round wherever applicable.

Then one day, you’re feeling perfectionistic. Maybe you’ve attended a workshop with lots of spiffy knitters, or maybe you’ve read a blog that’s made you feel inferior in your modest yarniness, or maybe you’ve spent the day commenting on the imperfections of others and feel it’s time to move yourself one step closer to quintessence. Whatever the case, the seam is bothering you.

You notice the imperfect garter is caused by the fact that each round doesn’t line up with its neighbors. It’s really obvious when you work two rounds of knit stitches, one round of purl stitches, and two more rounds of knits. As you examine your work closely, you discover that the first purl stitch of the round is next to and below the last stitch of the round. They can’t line up, just like the loops in the wire spine of a spiral notebook don’t form a closed ring.

Suddenly you experience an overwhelming desire to make flawless garter in the round. You don’t know why it’s vital, but it is, and it’s more urgent than a potato chip craving or a yarn jones. You Google; you ask; you experiment; and finally, the mystery is solved.

Here’s how you make garter in the round without the faux-sew seam:

Rnd 1: K till 1 st rem, sl1.
Rnd 2: P all sts of rnd; slip first st of next rnd; new beg of rnd after slipped st.
Rnd 3: K all sts of rnd; slip first st of next rnd; new beg of rnd after slipped st.
Rep Rnds 2 & 3 for pattern.

Notice two things are happening:
1. Each round is one round plus one stitch long, so the beginning of the round is always moving. When you’re new to this, you can place a marker at the beginning of the round, moving it as you go, but once you get used to identifying the slipped stitch, you can do it without a marker.
2. You’re always slipping the last stitch of the round. This pulls the higher stich down to the level of the lower stitch.

The same technique helps you with welted stitches like:
Rnds 1-2: K.
Rnds 3-4: P.
If the welts consist of 3 or more rounds, you still have to slip the last stitch of the round, but the beginning of the round can stay where it is—no moving required.

The technique is exactly what you do when you work horizontal stripes of different colors.

You make incredible garter, welts, and stripes in the round. You are most amazing!