How to Knit Bobbles Without Turning Your Work

We love bobbles, but sometimes turning your work to knit them can be cumbersome. To avoid the flip-flopping, Julie uses a simple trick for knitting bobbles without turning the work: reverse knitting!

Note: Julie is demonstrating on a 3-stitch bobble, but the technique will work for any bobble size.

How To...

1

Kf&b as Instructed

Work kf&b (knit front and back) as instructed in your pattern to increase to your called-for number of bobble stitches.

Do not turn work.

Normally, this is where you would turn your work and purl across your bobble stitches. Instead, we are going to reverse knit them!

2

Insert Left Needle into Stitch

Begin reverse knitting by inserting your left hand (LH) needle into the back of the first stitch on your right hand (RH) needle as if to slip, holding LH needle behind RH needle.

3

Wrap

Wrap your working yarn around your LH needle counterclockwise.

4

Pull Stitch Through

Pull your wrapped yarn through the stitch and drop the loop from your RH needle.

You've just reverse-knit one stitch!

5

Repeat

Continue to reverse knit the remaining bobble stitches.

6

Knit

Complete bobble according to pattern, knitting across your bobble stitches and repeating steps 2-5 for as many rows as called for.

7

Decrease

Decrease your bobble stitches as instructed in your pattern until you have 1 bobble stitch remaining.

8

Voilà!

You've just created a bobble without turning your work!

Patterns with Bobbles

1

Milli Kerchief

Our Milli Kerchief is a clever triangle bandana that uses short row shaping to create curved ties. The pattern includes instructions for stockinette, striped, and bobble versions.

Milli Kerchief pattern page

2

Olivia

Olivia is more than a vest, but not quite a sweater. It’s an easy piece to layer thanks to the completely open sides above the waist ribbing. You can knit it with either the yarn-over or bobble pattern in the center panel. 

Olivia pattern page

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