How to Work Duplicate Stitches in Knitting

 Duplicate stitches in knitting are a form of embroidery worked on your knitted fabric. To work these stitches, you do not require knitting needles but your wool needles, also known as darning, tapestry, and finishing needles. The technique gets its name because of the way the stitches are worked. The wool needle threaded with yarn follows the path of the stitch pattern (garter or stocking, etc.) and duplicates the path of the underlying knitted stitches. Stitches are duplicated for the purpose of utility or adding to the beauty. In fact, duplicate stitching is the easiest colourwork technique.

If you are new to the wonders of duplicate stitches, we'll look at how to work the basic stitch, its uses, and some tricks in this blog post.

How-to Make Duplicate Stitches

To duplicate stitches you must have a wool needle, a size smaller than the knitting needle, and yarn of either the same yarn or a contrasting shade used in the fabric. You can make duplicate stitches even after finished your knitted fabric and the project is off your knitting needles or when they are still on the needles. Whether you use single-pointed needles or double points or work with circulars, you can work duplicate stitches as the knitted fabric (like a garter or stocking) made by any of the needles is the same.

Insert the wood needle threaded with yarn from the back of the knitted fabric and go through the same path of the stitch below. The trick to smooth duplicate stitching for colourwork and many other patterns is to make half a stitch. How? Well, all knitted stitches form a V and for the half-stitch take the needle through the legs of the V.

Keep a uniform tension so that the underneath stitches do not peek out or look messy. The rule to duplicate stitching is to always take the shortest route to keep the bulkiness added to the fabric minimal. For a reversible stitch pattern, start from the seam for flat projects or go as invisibly as possible for seamless patterns.

You can take your wool needle row-wise or column-wise depending on whether you want the stitches to have to point up or down. Also, the direction can be determined by the purpose, whether for utility purposes or adding to the beauty.

How to Use Duplicate Stitches

There are different purposes to use duplicate stitches. Here’s a list to make use of this stitch technique.

1. Mending - Duplicate stitches for utility are also called "Swiss darning" and "invisible mending." Working another strand of yarn into knitted stitches thickens and stiffens the fabric. A worn fabric, for example, the heel of a dearly-loved sock or elbows of a sweater, can be mended. The colour match is critical for the fix to be undetectable.
   
   
2. Decorating - The second use of duplicate stitches is on a perfectly sound fabric to add colour decoration. You can easily make alphabets or images and other patterns. Here using a contrasting yarn shade.

To combine utility with decoration, use the duplicate stitches to make a colourful flower over a thinning elbow, sock heel, or a little heart over a moth hole.

3. Weaving in yarn ends – Duplicate stitches are a neat way to weave in yarn ends but first consider the stitch pattern. If you have a seam at the edge, then bury the yarn tail end there or go through the stitches in the opposite direction.
   
   
4. Yarn Changes - When you have multiple yarns, you’ll have multiple yarn ends. To make them strong and neat use duplicate stitches to join the new yarn end.

Be it the purpose of utility or adding to the beauty, these stitches greatly help. Just makes sure to work with a round-tip finishing needle that goes quickly through the stitches and fabric. Having the right wool needle is the trick to smooth duplicate stitch technique in knitting. Just like knitting needles, wool needles are available in standard sizes determined by the diameter of the needle. Always make sure to use a darning needle smaller than the knitting needle size.

With this, get ready to transform your knitting with duplicate stitches.