Bramble Stitch
Corrina FergusonThe bramble stitch goes by many names: Trinity stitch, cluster stitch, or raspberry stitch. No matter what you call it, it’s a beautiful, lacy pattern that’s perfect for shawls and scarves. In this video, Corrina Ferguson explains how to go about working the bramble stitch.
Corrina begins by showing a finished swatch of the lace. She notes that this stitch pattern is interesting, because the Right Side of the piece is worked entirely in purl stitches, with the patterning happening on the Wrong Side rows. Corrina shows both sides of the swatch, noting that both sides are beautiful, making this a great stitch pattern for reversible knitting projects.
Corrina then demonstrates how to work the p3tog (purl 3 stitches together) decrease that’s used in the stitch pattern. She inserts her right needle purlwise into the next three stitches on the left needle and purls them together. This is a double decrease that takes three stitches and reduces them to a single stitch.
She then shows how to work the (k1, p1, k1) in next stitch increase. She inserts her right needle into the next stitch and knits it, leaving the stitch on the left needle. She brings her right needle into the stitch again to purl, once again leaving the stitch on the left needle. Corrina then takes the right needle into the stitch once more to knit, dropping the stitch on the left needle. This is a double increase that turns a single stitch into three stitches.
BRAMBLE STITCH
Worked over a multiple of 4 stitches:
- Row 1 (RS): Purl all stitches.
- Row 2 (WS): *P3tog, (k1, p1, k1) in next st; rep from * to end.
- Row 3: Purl all stitches.
- Row 4: *(K1, p1, k1) in next st, p3tog; rep from * to end.
Rep rows 1–4 for pattern.
ABBREVIATIONS
k: knit
p: purl
p3tog: purl three stitches together
st(s): stitches(es)
RS: Right Side
rep: repeat
WS: Wrong Side
Hi there. I'm Corrina Ferguson for The Knitting Circle. In this video, we're going to learn about a stitch with many names; the trinity stitch, the cluster stitch. But for today, we're gonna call it the bramble stitch. Let's get started.
For this video, we are going to learn how to do the bramble stitch. Some people will call this the trinity stitch or the cluster stitch. The first time I saw it, they called it a raspberry stitch. It was in a little raspberry hat, which I thought was adorable. It's basically little clusters of stitches that are super easy to work.
It's one of those patterns that I really like the way it looks on the wrong side, too, 'cause that's what you get on the wrong side of the work. But these are little clusters or brambles, and that's what we're gonna learn how to knit right now. The bramble stitch is unusual in that the right side of the fabric, all we do is purl across the rows. All of the patterning, all the action, is happening on the wrong side of the fabric. There's written instructions here for the video that'll tell you exactly how to do this.
It's a super-simple repeat that does two different maneuvers you may not have come across before. The first, we're on the wrong side of the work here, is a purl three together. We're gonna bring the yarn, make sure it's at the front of our work, insert the right-hand needle tip into three stitches at the same time, and purl them together. Super easy. We got rid of two stitches.
The next maneuver is the increase maneuver. So we're decreasing, increasing, decreasing, increasing, and then the opposite when we do the other rows. The increase maneuver that we're going to do is going to be a knit one, purl one, knit one, all in the same stitch. The way that that works is this; we knit the stitch, but we don't let the stitch come off our left-hand needle. We bring our yarn to the front.
We purl the stitch. Again, no jumping off here. It's still here. Bring the yarn to the back and knit the stitch one more time. We've taken one stitch and turned it into three.
We lost two here and we gained two here. Let's watch the maneuvers one more time. Purl three together. Insert all three stitches at the same time. Next three stitches on the needle.
Purl together. And then the knit one, purl one, knit one, which is the one where this stitch isn't gonna come off til the very end. We knit one. We leave it on. Bring the yarn to the front.
We purl one. We leave it on. Bring the yarn to the back. Knit one one last time. That's our increase there.
If we come back and look at our fabric, we can easily see how the things we worked on the wrong side happened. Let's go over to the wrong side here. You can see here where we've increased and you can see here where we've decreased. We pulled them all together. We added them up.
We had the knit one, purl one, knit one, and then we had the purl three together. They get stacked and staggered, so you get a pattern of clusters that looks just like this. That's your bramble stitch. Thank you so much for joining me to learn how to work the bramble stitch. Check out our website for more great videos.
To get that lacy effect, what size yarn and needles do you use?
Thank you for your question Cherish and for your answer Jen. As a new knitter, it is just the information I need to help me learn.
Thanks so much , this is exactly what I wanted to learn. And now I know the name of the stitch.
How many stitches are ideal for this in each row? How many stitches should it be on the edges of the pattern? Do you use purling for edges?