German Short Rows: easy and invisible!

My current project (a hooded cowl) ended up having a lot of shaping to get it to drape correctly and I ended up using German short rows to accomplish that. I thought I’d share this easy technique that eliminates the unsightly holes or odd stitches and invisibly blends into a stockinette fabric.

Let’s get to it! Knit up to the turning point:

Turn your knitting:

Now slip the ST you just knitted from the LN to the RN, keeping the working yarn in the front:

Here it is. Now lay the working yarn over that slipped ST and snug it up tightly. You will be pulling the base up and forming a “double ST”.

Keep the tension on that ST and pull the working yarn through the needles so that it’s in front of the ST on the LN. Purl the next ST on the LN while keeping the tension tight enough to maintain your double ST.

You can see that I have purled 3 ST beyond the double ST. Keep on purling until you are directed to Turn again.

Here’s my turning point. I’m going to stop and Turn again:

This time, of course, I’m on the right side. I’m still keeping my working yarn in the front as I prepare to slip that first ST from the LN to the RN:

And once again, I’m going to snug up the working yarn over the top of the RN to pull up the base of that ST to make a double ST:

Almost done now! Keep doing this as directed.

The final important point is to work both legs of the double ST when you encounter it later. Here I am knitting towards one of those double ST that I created earlier. It’s 3 ST away on the LN as is quite obvious:

When you get to a double ST, work the 2 ST together as if they were a single ST (which they are, actually). I’m approaching with a knit row so I’ll work these like a K2TOG.