Fisherman’s Rib

Hi there. I am Mary Beth Temple, and thanks for joining me today. I always appreciate when you come visit when I'm on the lives and today we're going to talk about the fisherman's rib stitch. We're going to learn it both flat, so straight and rows, and we're also going to learn. In the round, which is a little bit different.

Now our friendly host has put a link in the chat room so you can download the handout so that you'll have the pattern in written form if that's what you would like. So let's talk about the fisherman's rib a little bit. It's very, very dense and because it's very dense, it's very warm, so this is a great stitch for scarves and hats and winter sweaters and jackets. But it's not heavy, so the stitch is dense and very squishy, but it's not heavy weight like a cable is that uses a lot of yarn, and that's because we're going to use these knit one below stitches and when we get to doing it in the round, we're going to do knit one below stitches and pearl one below stitches but because of that you get a super thick fabric, but it's not so dense that you feel like you're wearing a lead blanket. The other thing I really like about Fisherman's rip is it is 100% reversible.

So this is what it looks like on one side. And this is what it looks like on the other side it looks exactly the same on both sides. So again, the reason that is a a benefit is because sometimes you'll do again specifically a case. or some other kind of texture pattern that looks terrific on the right side and kind of uh on the wrong side. So for scarves and shawls and wraps especially, it's really nice to have the inside of your item look as nice as the outside of your item.

So we're going to start by working on the. Stitch in rows. I'm gonna just move this over to the correct needle. No, I'm not. I'm going to cast on a new swatch.

Now you want to cast on an odd number of stitches. I used 15 for the sample, but any number of odd stitches will work, and I used to, I like to use my long tail cast on, uh, but it's not super important one way or the other, whichever one you like works. 89, 1011. 1213, 14. And 15.

Now the first thing you're going to need to do is put one plain row of knitting in, and that is because the density of the fabric is made by knitting one below and you can't knit one below if there's nothing to knit into. While I'm putting this row on, I remind you, if you have any questions, ask them in the chat and I will do my level best to answer them. So in your written pattern, this is called the set up row and we're just going to knit one row so that we have a base for our fabric. If you're doing a scarf perhaps or a sleeve or a bottom up sweater, you don't have to have this knit row. You could say you started with a ribbing, you could work right into the ribbing.

You just need some sort of basis. To get in there and knit with. So now following along with your pattern, we're going to do row one, which is pearl 1. And then knit one below, pearl one all the way across. So, here is my knit one below.

I'm going to take my knitting needle, instead of putting it in the stitch like I normally would, I'm going in the stitch below. And one of the reasons I'm working on the chunky yarn here today so you can really see what I'm doing. But I want you to notice that instead of 1 strand over the knitting needle like I might normally have, I have 2. So the other thing that I want you to notice, you have to get your yarn in the back for the knit stitch before you insert your needle. So I did my pearl one.

I took my yarn to the back. I'm going to insert my right hand needle tip, knit one below. So I'm going to knit my stitch the way I normally would. Pulling my yarn through and then I'm going to pop that stitch off like I normally would. It just looks a little awkward.

It's not what you're used to. So I'm gonna do this all the way across. Pearl one. Take the yarn to the back, knit one below, making sure you have two strands of yarn on top of your knitting needle. That just assures you that you have the stitch below and also the stitch on the needle.

You don't want to drop stitches. This is not a dropped stitch pattern. Pearl, take your yarn to the back. Knit one below. So we're going to do this all the way across.

Oh, I also meant to say this makes a really nice blanket. Because it is warm. Without being so heavy that you feel like you're suffocating. Oh my goodness. Somebody said hello from Cyprus.

That is really cool. Once again, knit one below. Pearl one That one below. Pearl one. So that is our first row.

And this is what we have going on. Doesn't look like much yet, but the magic is coming. And I hesitate to say right side wrong side if you want to, if you are concerned, you could take a locking stitch marker and put it on one of the sides of your fabric, probably the side we just did, and that will remember, uh, that will remind you that you're going to start with a pearl 1. On the opposite side, we're going to start with a pearl 2, and we're also gonna end with a pearl 2, so we're gonna pearl 21. 2 Knit one below same deal.

Now it's Pearl one. Nit one below all the way across, that's the repeat. Pearl one. Knit one below. So we have a question that says, does this make it thicker than a one by one rib?

Yes. The fabric is thicker. It does not, oh sorry, I got a hair in my mouth. It does not stretch out and snap back in the same way that a one by one rib does. So if you want the visual, it will look very similar and it will be thicker, but you're not going to have the same elasticity in a fisherman's rib that you would have with a one by one rib.

So here I am at the end. I'm going to pearl 21. 2. So you can see my pattern is just starting to build up. Now, I'm going to pop my sample onto these needles.

Because I also want to show you what the rows look like when you have a more established piece. Oh my goodness, we have quite a group today. We have hello from Kansas City and we also have from hello from Sydney, Australia. So I love that we have such a worldwide group today. This is very cool.

All right. I just wanted to get these on the correct needles. Oh my goodness, I am so tangled today, you guys. All right, now let's talk about if you don't do the stitch marker trick and you're not sure what side you're working on, obviously you are going to stitch where the working yarn is, but you can see that this row starts with a pearl too. So after you have your pattern established, if you can't remember where you are, the phone rings, you have to put your work down.

Your knit one belows are going to be in this column of knit one belows. They look bigger and looser than the other stitches. So if you know that your first knit one below is going to be here, I can see that I have two pearl stitches. If I was on the other side. I would look here.

I would see that my first knit one below would be there, so I would only have one pearl stitch. So the only difference in the two rows is on one side of the work you begin and end with one pearl stitch and on the opposite side you begin and end with two pearl stitches so I did my pearl 2, knit 1 below, pearl 1. Net one below. And you see how easy it is to see where you're going once that pattern has been established. So if you have If you uh have a little difficulty visualizing it at the beginning, I would say muscle through the 1st 4 to 6 rows and then it's a lot easier to read your knitting to intuit what you're doing because you can see, you can see what's going on there.

And Maine, we have Maine and Queens, New York. My goodness, this is a worldwide group today. Pearl one Hit 1 below. And now I'm at the end of this row, I'm gonna pearl 2. So here is our bigger sample and again you can do this as long as you like.

You can, uh, you know, make your piece whatever size you want it to be and then I like to bind off in pattern. I bind off as if it was a knit one pearl one ribbing, I'm pearling the pearl stitches, and I'm doing either a knit stitch or a knit one below in the knit one belows so that I keep my bind off in pattern. Let's take a look at doing it in the round, which is slightly different. So here's a little hat I'm working on. So earlier I said to you, if you didn't want to start with making a knit row or a pearl row at the beginning of your work that, uh, you could go right into the ribbing if you were working on ribbing.

So since this is going to be a hat when it grows up, I went ahead and did my regular knit one pearl one ribbing here. And then I put my fisherman's rib stitch right into it. But I decided that was a little dark, so I changed, I changed colors here. Now for doing this in the round, you do not want an odd number of stitches you want an even number of stitches because we don't have those side edges to worry about and there are essentially two stitches in the repeat. So when we're working in the round, we're going to do an even number, not an odd number.

So Let me just get myself settled here and find my yarn. So the first, let me double check, I say this right. The first round is knit one below. Pearl one That one below. Pearl one This is another instance where since my pattern is well established, I can see.

Where those knit one belows go. So this is, this is not too difficult. Oh my goodness, let's see, I, I don't usually talk about all the places we have people visiting from, but it's such a wild group today with Boston, Germany, New Jersey. All right, I'm a Jersey girl too. Canada, Naperville, Illinois, Victoria, British Columbia, Northwest Washington state, um, you guys, do you have any questions though?

Now's a really good time to ask because I have to get to the end of this round so I can show you the next round. But I do love a worldwide group. It is amazing what the internet has done for the knitting community, I have to say. But yes, I just flew out here from New Jersey yesterday. Our home office here is in the great state of Minnesota, and I am freezing.

All right, I'm just gonna get to the end of the round here. You're all quiet other than telling me where you're from. We have no questions today. I do love this in a chunky yarn, I have to say. I do a lot of uh video content here on the chunky yarn because I think it's easier for you to see when I'm doing complicated stitches but uh this stitch in a in a chunky yarn is just so soft and nice.

I'm using, I think this is Burnett Softy Chunky and the. Uh, the straight rows, that sample was on a 10.5 knitting needle, and these are 11. Oklahoma, Michigan, and Liverpool, England. How about a neck warmer? Oh heck yes.

I think this would be a really amazing neck warmer and I would. So if I was making a cow or a neck warmer from the bottom up, I would put some garter stitch or maybe some linen stitch or not a lot of ribbing because I wouldn't want it to draw in too much, but maybe a little bit of ribbing on either side just to keep it compact. But yeah, it would stretch over your head really nicely. That's a very good idea. OK, I'm almost to the end of my round here.

I do want to show you the second round because it's a little bit different than the way we did it when we did it in Rose. I should have put less stitches on this hat. All right. You will also notice again chunky yarn big needles, but it goes pretty quickly. Once you get the hang of what you're doing, you can knit this just as quickly as you would a one by one rib.

So on the second round, because we're not turning our work, we're working in the round, we're not working in rows, we're going to actually do some plain knit ones and then we're going to pearl one below and that is the stitch that I want to show you. Let's make sure that I'm at the end of my round, which I am. So for the 2nd. Round. We're going to knit one.

Let me get my yarn in the back, knit one. Pearl one below it's the same idea as the knit one below where we have to have the two strands over our knitting needles, but because we're pearling, so let me get that yarn in the front, I'm bringing my needle tip from the back to the front. And making my pearl stitch. I'm going to show you that a bunch more times, so don't panic. Knit one.

Pearl one below, so get your yarn to the front. And I don't have to do this every time. I did that to sort of show you what I was doing. And there is my pearl one below. I'm bringing that needle tip from the back to the front through the stitch below, making sure I have two strands over it, pearling.

So it's the same general idea. As the knit one below, it's just coming from a different. Place And I'm going to do this every. Every other round, so that is a 2 round repeat and we're going to repeat those two rounds over and over. Now this one is ever so slightly trickier if you put your work down and come back to it to remember which round you're on, just a little bit.

trickier to see. So you're still having, so here is. Here is the right side of my work. Here's the side of the work that's uh facing me. And here is the wrong side of the work, and you can see.

That I still have the same columns of d stitching on this side, but the knit one belows are on this side and the pearl one belows are what is making that column on the other side. OK. So, where I knit one below on the last round, I'm knitting it this time, where I had a pearl stitch on the last round, I'm doing a pearl one below this time. Let's see Uh, so I missed the very beginning, but I'm curious as to why the straight version uses an odd number of stitches which makes the sides look different rather than more similar. Um, let me finish this round, and then I will show you.

Is there a way you can do a close up of the knit one below so I can make sure I'm knitting in the right place? Is that a thing? OK, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna finish this round and then I'm going back to the straight sample and I will answer those questions. And if we have any other questions, now is a really good time to ask. In fact, I think we're pretty good here on the round.

Are we feeling pretty confident on the round? I think I'm gonna go back to the straight sample. OK. So, a couple of technical questions that we had, which I love. Thank you very much.

Why do I prefer an odd number of stitches on fisherman's rib? I don't like to end with a knit one below. I like to end with a plain stitch with a pearl stitch, and the reason is if I'm making a sweater and I have to seam it together, if I'm making a scarf and I'm gonna put an edging on it, this is a lot easier to work in than this is. So I want at least one stitch on either side that is not a knit one below. Uh, so that's that reason.

So the other reason they don't look exactly the same on both sides, and this is really technical. So here we are. Let's look at the 4th stitch in the row 1234 on this side of the work. This is the knit one below stitch. On this side of the work, 1234.

It's a pearl stitch. So when I said the fabric is exactly the same on both sides, it's not exactly the same on both sides, but it's really stinking similar and you would have a really hard time telling one side from the other if you were just looking at it. So because all right, let's see if I can say this correctly. So yes, there's pearl 2 on this side and there's pearl 1 on this side but the way the fabric is made I cannot have pearl 1 on this side and pearl 1 on this side and if I didn't even number. You could do an even number if you began with a pearl 1 and ended with a pearl 2 and on the other side of the work, you began, I gotta think about it.

Now you could do it if you began with a pearl 1 and ended with a pearl 2. I think this is easier to teach. So this is the way I do it. Could you fiddle around with it a little bit possibly, but um, we're trying to get the basics down right here. So I always tell people an odd number and that's how I teach it.

Everything that I teach here and any place else in the world, uh, there are variations. There is no one right way to do anything in knitting. I am here to tell you if you learn nothing else from this class that the knitting police will not come and get you. Um, so get your basic information from us or from wherever you do, uh, and then go ahead and do some exploration and see what works best for you. So, um, we're gonna try and go a little bit closer here, and I'm gonna do that one below stitch.

So I'm going to go here. So not here. This is where the regular knit stitch would be. I am going under that knit stitch and there are two strands over my. Knitting needle.

Let's do that again. Sorry, I'm having a little computer issue here. Give me one second, y'all. Which row around would you change colors most neatly on? Well, I'm gonna have to go back to in the round, so give me one second and we'll talk about that too.

Here we go. We're just, uh, the camera has moved a little closer so you guys can see a little better. For those of you that have. Missed the very beginning. I'm sure you can catch a replay, and I'm sure our friendly host will tell you how to do that in the chat.

So here's my needle tip not in that stitch, under that stitch, but you have to go through the center. That's the only vaguely tricky bit. We'll do it just a couple more times. And then I'll grab that round sample and we'll look at the color changes. Actually, we don't even have to do that.

I could color change on this one. Let's see how that looks. OK, one last time, very close up. Here we are, not this stitch, but underneath it, and there are two strands over my knitting needle. So we just finished a row one.

Let me see if I have another color down here. In the great pile. If you guys saw the state of the studio when I was in it, you would be appalled. I have all kinds of piles of things everywhere. So this coming up is a row 2.

Let's throw another color on here and see what happens. I, my point is I don't think it matters. I think the only way it would matter is if you were making a sweater and had elected a right side or a wrong side. I kind of think that you could add a new color on either side, but let's find out. I'm gonna put a couple stitches on this and we'll take a look.

So this is the row 2 that we're working on. And our friendly host has let you know where you can watch the replays, so. Thank you friendly host. All right, I'm gonna finish this row real quick and we're gonna look at both sides and see what we think. Sometimes the guys in the studio refer to my bags down here as Mary Poppins bags because whatever we seem to need I seem to be able to reach in and pull it out of it but I always worry what TSA is going to think if they open my bags and find all this madness.

All right. So this was a row 2, so we began and ended with our two pearls. So this is one side of the work. So let's, um, I'm glad we're we're looking close here. If you look at the pearl bump on this side, it is two colors.

The same thing happens with 1 by 1 ribbing or 2 by 2 ribbing unless you put a straight row of knitting in there when you change colors in a ribbing, you do get that little two color pearl bump. I will say this. Because of the way the color recedes, this doesn't bother me like I know it's in there. But It's not like I'm looking at this going, holy cow, that's a two color stitch. Let's see what it looks like on the other side.

So on the other side I'm not getting, I, I, you're just seeing the least little. Little bit of it. I'm gonna put one more row on this and we'll look at it a little more closely. um, let's see we have some questions. Does fisherman's rib stretch out a lot over time?

I'm gonna say that it can some of that is going to be related to what kind of yarn you're using and in the same way that earlier I talked about, so when I talked about the cowl when somebody said wouldn't that make a good neck warmer? Yeah, it would. And I said put some ribbing at the beginning of the end, put some garter stitch at the beginning of the end, put some linen stitch at the beginning of the end and having something on either side of it will help it not stretch out of shape width wise you have to pay more attention to width wise. As as far as the stitch construction goes vertically. It's not going to stretch out a whole lot because the pearl stitches are holding everything into place, right?

So you're gonna get the same gauge the same relative gauge from the pearl stitch that you always would so it's not going to stretch out north south it could conceivably stretch out width wise or east west if you will and because of that I would start with. So this is just a sample. If I was making a scarf, in fact, I did make a scarf for my niece, um, and I put a garter stitch board all the way around it. I had a few rows of garter stitches at the bottom. I had some garter stitch on this side.

I had some garter stitch on that side. I did it just to keep everything in place, and she has worn that scarf for 3 or 4 years now and it still looks great if I do say so myself. All right, if we have any more questions. Now's your chance. Otherwise, I'm gonna get ready, ready to say goodbye to all of you from all of your different places in the world.

Let's take one more quick look at this color change to see what it looks like. So here is the pearl one side. We just finished a row one. And here it is on the other side. So now here.

We're getting Because we knit one below and one stitch was one color and one stitch was the other color, you are again getting the least little bit of a bumpy bump here, but that's going to happen no matter which side you change your color on it'll be the same either way. So I don't hate the color change. You could if you wanted to just knit a solid row and then go back to your stitch pattern, but that might affect your gauge width wise. All right. Excuse me.

Anyway, I am Mary Beth Temple, and thank you so much from wherever in the world that you are. Thank you so much for joining us here today. We look forward to seeing you again here real soon and happy knitting. Bye-bye.