Half Linen Stitch

Hi there, I'm Jen Lucas from The Knitting Circle. In this video, let's take a look at the half linen stitch. This stitch pattern is similar to the traditional linen stitch pattern but with a little variation, it's even easier to work, and creates a very beautiful drapey fabric. I'd love to show you how to make it, let's get started on the half linen stitch. Let's take a look at my swatch for the half linen stitch.

The half linen stitch is similar to traditional linen stitch except we're gonna be working it over four rows instead of two rows. The main difference is that on the wrong side rows we're just going to be purling the stitches. When it comes to traditional or regular linen stitch, we are, on the right side, knitting and slipping stitches, but on the wrong side, we're purling and slipping stitches. But with the half linen stitch, we're just purling on the wrong side. So let's just bring in my swatch of regular linen stitch, and you can see how different they do look.

With regular linen stitch, you'll see that there are a lot more of these horizontal bars throughout the fabric, and that's because we're slipping stitches on both the right sides and the wrong sides. You'll notice that this is much more compact than this, and that's because of the way we're slipping on both sides. We're really only working a stitch with a knit or a purl every other row, so it really sort of squishes and compacts things down on regular linen stitch. With half linen stitch, because you're purling back on the wrong side of your work, you end up having stitches that look much more like traditional stitches, it's not as sort of squished down or compact as regular linen stitch. The other thing too, is that this is gonna give you a gauge that's much more similar to something of like a stockinette stitch versus this, again, because it's so compact.

This does curl a little bit in the way traditional stockinette stitch does versus regular linen stitch that really creates a very firm fabric that doesn't really curl. This, you can really tell, this creates a much looser fabric, it does curl a little bit along the edge. But this is really beautiful if you sort of want the look of linen stitch but you want maybe a fabric that has more drape for something like a sweater, half linen stitch might be a great pattern for you to try. So let's go ahead and start knitting it. I have a swatch here, and you just need a multiple of two plus one stitch on the needle, so basically an odd number of stitches on your needle, in order to work this stitch pattern.

So to begin, we're going to do the first row by knitting a stitch, and then slipping a stitch with the yarn in the front, and we're slipping all of our stitches purl wise. So then I'm bringing the yarn to the back to knit. Bringing the yarn in between the needles to the front and slipping. So we're just doing that all the way across. Knit one, bring the yarn forward, slip one with yarn in front, knit one, slip one with yarn in front.

So we're gonna work that all the way across. And so, because we have that odd number of stitches, we're gonna end with a knit one. So we started and ended with a knit one. Coming to row two, we're just purling on the wrong side, like I said. So we're just gonna purl across.

Makes it a nice, easy stitch pattern. Now when we come to row three, we're gonna do something a little bit different than we did on row one. We want the stitches that we're slipping, where we have the yarn in the front, you'll notice here that they're offset. So, I have a slip here where the yarn was in the front, and then I have a slip here where the yarn is in the front. So you can see they're offset as we're moving along on our fabric.

So row three is gonna be a little bit different. Instead of starting with a knit one, we're gonna start with a knit two. So we're gonna knit two, and then we're going to slip one with the yarn in the front, knit one. And then just keep doing that. Slip one with yarn in front, knit one.

We're gonna end with a slip one with the yarn in the front, knit one, and then the last stitch, knit one. So we have two knit stitches basically, there's two knit stitches at the beginning and then two at the end. And then row four, we're just gonna be purling again, 'cause we're on the wrong side and we're always purling on the wrong side for the stitch pattern. And so it's just those four rows repeated. You just go back to row one after this, and keep working in that way over those four rows, and again, you just need an odd number of stitches when you're working back and forth in rows like we are here, and that's the half linen stitch.

I really do love the fabric that's created with the half linen stitch. I really encourage you to try it, I think that it would be great for your variegated yarns, because you're slipping those stitches, it really could break up the color very nicely, and I do love the drape of the fabric that you get with the half linen stitch. Thank you so much for watching me here at The Knitting Circle, I hope that you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you back here again real soon.