The headline is something of a misleading one because you don’t actually knit duplicate stitches. Duplicate stitch (sometimes called Swiss Darning) is a decorative stitch worked directly on top of your stockinette stitches.
I learned the duplicate stitch when I saw Nicky Epstein’s Highland Fling Plaid Jacket and realized that I very badly needed to learn how to knit plaids. The answer (at least in this scenario) is that you don’t knit plaid. You knit horizontal stripes and add the vertical stripes when you are done, creating the plaid. Nicky Eptstein’s jacket is written for an Aran weight yarn and I had a sufficient quantity and variety of DK weight yarn to do this project in. What I failed to consider when I cast on was that my lighter weight yarn would mean an eternity sewing on vertical stripes.
I really like this stitch, and I’m very likely to use it again in future projects. It’s a great stitch for when you want to add a small detail (cute little flower at your sweater hem?) or in this case, tp completely transform a garment.
Materials needed:
- Tapestry needle
- Coordinating color yarn
- Worked stockinette stitch
Pro tip: Keep the length of yarn you are working with long enough that you won’t need to keep cutting and weaving in new lengths, but not so long that it will become a tangled mess. That’s how you get knots in your work, guys.
Step 1: With a length of yarn threaded through the needle but not knotted, anchor your yarn at the back of the work by weaving it through existing stitches. I used a safety pin to mark where I want my duplicate stitches to begin, and that make it easy to find where I wanted to put them.
Step 2: Pull your yarn through to the front. All remaining work will be done from the front of the work.
For vertical stitches:
Step 3: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch above it and gently pull it through.
You can start see how the new decorative stitch mimics the stockinette below it.
Step 4: Work the tapestry needle back into the same hole where you pulled the yarn from at the beginning of this stitch. Work the needle under the bar between the stockinette stitch and the one below it, this will help anchor it in place.
Step 5: Pull the yarn through, but not too tight. The goal is for the stitch to sit directly on top of the one beneath it, and a too-tight stitch will cause it to bunch in an unsightly way.
For horizontal stitches:
Step 3: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch next to it and gently pull it through.
Step 4: Work the tapestry needle under the legs of the stitch above the hole where your needle just came out.
Step 5: Work the needle under the legs of the stitch next to the one you just finished.
Step 6: Pull the yarn through, but not too tight. The goal is for the stitch to sit directly on top of the one beneath it, and a too-tight stitch will cause it to bunch in an unsightly way.