Increase stitches from a horizontal thread

Gründl Knitting School

Knitting for beginners: Increasing stitches from a strand between stitches

Knitting for beginners: Increasing stitches from a strand between stitches

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Learn how to increase stitches from the strand between stitches

If you want to give your knitted piece a specific shape – for example, for arm or side shaping, raglan lines, after a ribbing, or when knitting shawls – you need to increase the number of stitches deliberately. A proven method for this is to increase stitches from the strand between stitches.

This type of increase can be made both at the edge and at any point within the knitted fabric. The strand between stitches, i.e., the small strand between two stitches of the previous row, is lifted onto the left needle. This strand is then knitted like a regular stitch – either knit or purl, depending on what your knitting pattern specifies.

Important: To prevent a hole from forming in your knitted piece with this increase, you should knit the stitch through the back loop.

Step-by-step instructions

Here's how:

A stitch can be worked from the strand between stitches, slanting to the right or to the left.
In the example, you will see how the right- and left-leaning increases work with 2 marked center stitches.

Right-leaning increase:

Left-leaning increase:

Knit your first top-down raglan cardigan

Ready? After our tutorial "Increasing stitches from the strand between stitches", you can now jump straight into the pattern for the top-down raglan cardigan.

You can download the free pattern here and simultaneously order the suitable yarn in the colors of your choice.