Need Help Explining Yf (yarn forward), Knit 4

by Calder Falk
(Toronto, Ontario, Canada)

I have one of your free scarf patterns (thank you for providing so many knitting patterns for beginners like me, BTW) and there is a pattern with 2 alternating rows; the even rows are straight purl, but the uneven (1,3,5, etc.) have a set of instructions that I'm confused about- I'm sure I'm making it more difficult than it is, but in the beginning of the set, it says to k1, yf, k4. My questions are: do you mean bring the yarn in front like you're going to purl, but knit instead? I get a kind of loose area when I do it that way. Also, when I bring the yarn to the front, do I do it only once for the first knit in the set of 4 or do I bring the yarn forward again after each knit stitch in that set? I printed out the name of the scarf, but I can't find that page and so I only have the instructions for making the scarf, no pictures or title, so I hope my explanation is clear enough for you to be able to help me.

Thanks again,

Calder

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Hi Calder,

Thank you for you question. I'd be glad to help as best as I can. I'm breaking down your questions as follow;

Question 1: K1, yf, k 4. Do you mean bring the yarn in front like you're going to purl, but knit instead? I get a kind of loose area when I do it that way.

Answer: Yes, bring the yarn to the front like when you purl. Then knit the next 4 stitches. You will get a loose area because yf create an eyelet between the two stitches. You'll also gain an extra stitches from yf as well. When you do the odd row, you just purl the yf stitch as you purl other stitches.

Question 2: Also, when I bring the yarn to the front, do I do it only once for the first knit in the set of 4 or do I bring the yarn forward again after each knit stitch in that set?

Answer: You only need to do yf once before the set of k 4.

I hope I answer your questions. Let me know if you're still confused. I'll try another way to explain it to you. Knitting can be quite confusing sometimes. Once you get over it, you'll have a lot of fun.

Thanks for visiting to-knit-knitting-stitche.com

Ratcha