Knitting short rows without wraps. Shadow Wrap Short Rows – Invisible knitting of short rows.
Perfect Japanese Short Row substitute where you don’t need any extra tools and result is as good.
I was testing this short row method using cotton swatch. Cotton yarn doesn’t leave space for mistakes. It is a great way to test if shadow wraps are invisible.
Shadow wrap and turn: knit side
Knit to the place where your pattern guide you to turn. In my case, I will leave 4 stitches and turn my work. Look carefully at the stitch on the needle. You will need to pick up the stitch which is right under the stitch on the needle. It is a stitch from previous row.
Pick this stitch up and place onto left-hand needle. And KNIT it as regular stitch, place it back onto left-hand needle again. Leave yarn in the back. You are ready to turn on the other side.
Can you guess now why this short row method is Shadow wraps? Yes, we are creating a “shadow” which always comes behind main stitch on the needle.
Shadow wrap and turn: purl side.
Follow the pattern where it tells you to turn. I have 4 stitches left.
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Slip next stitch purl-wise. Yarn in front.
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Find stitch from previous row. It will look like purl bump just underneath.
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Pick that stitch and purl. Now you have a double stitch on the right needle.
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Slip double stitch back to the left needle. Yarn is in front.
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Turn.
Shadow wraps in the round
Shadow wrap knitting in the round is easy. When you join knitting in the round, you will have shadow wraps which were made on the right side – treat like one stitch and knit it off.
When you see slightly twisted double stitch – that’s the one made on purl side. Treat it as one and knit through the front loops.
No tricks, easy as it can get.
Shadow wrap vs German short row
German short row substitution with shadow wraps is a straightforward decision. Difference is that in shadow wrap we make an extra stitch which creates double stitch. German short rows, a double stitch is created by pulling stitch upwards on the needle. We work with the same stitch.
In order to substitute, we just change the way we treat the stitch.
Conclusion
There are a few more short rows methods.
German and Shadow Wrap are NO WRAP short rows, actually.
My way to go are Japanese and Shadow short rows. In my opinion, these are more invisible in knitting.
How many short row methods do you use in your knitting life?