What’s the difference between “pick up” and “pick up and knit”?

What?  There’s a difference?

Well, yes, there is — although I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it spelled out 100% clearly.  It took me a while to figure out that there was a difference, and what it was.  Attached I-cord is what brought me to my senses.

Unfortunately, the two terms have been used all-but-interchangeably — to the point where even if you know about the difference, there is a chance that the writer of your pattern didn’t.  So we might have to use our noggins anyway.


“Pick up” means this:  to run a needle (usually a spare one) through existing loops of yarn to create new sts, without using the working yarn to form the new sts.  The loops that are picked up can be anywhere on the edge or the surface of the fabric.

For example, you can run a needle through some sts across the fronts of your cardigan, tie on some yarn, work a few rows, and voila!  you have faux pocket flaps, a la Chanel.

Or, you can run a needle through a few sts on either side of the bottom of your hat, tie on some yarn, work a few rows with some decreases thrown in, and poof! earflaps!

If your pattern tells you to “pick up” some sts, and the working yarn is still nearby, usually the next thing that happens is that the working yarn is used to work those picked-up sts in some form or fashion.

An example is when you are attaching I-cord to an existing piece of fabric:  you will be “picking up” loops of the base fabric (color A) on a spare needle — then you will be working an I-cord, perhaps in color B, that will be attached to those A loops by working a loop of color A and a st of color B together.

BTW, if you are using a different color for your cord, and you want a clean color change, you can’t just work your cord sts and then k2tog the last cord st with one of the base fabric sts:  k2tog leans to the right, which means the loop from the base fabric will lie on top of the st from your cord, and the color change will not be smooth.

You’ll probably want to SSK or SKP those two different color loops.  If that doesn’t do the trick, start googling: I know I’ve seen some pretty weird maneuvers that inventive knitters have thought up, involving YO’s and I don’t know what all else, in order to camouflage color A loops adequately behind color B cord sts.

In any event, when working attached I-cord, if you mistakenly use the working yarn to “pick up and knit” sts along your fabric instead of just picking them up on a spare needle, then your working yarn is going to be at the wrong end of the piece, and you’ll have to break it and return back to where you ought to be.  OTOH, if you are having a really hard time hiding color A with color B, this could be a pretty slick solution!

Finally, when picking up sts, it is almost always helpful to use a slightly smaller needle to do the “picking up” part.  Oh, and make sure you pick them up with the correct st mount, or correct the st mount on all the sts when you’re done picking them up.


“Pick up and knit” means this:  to use a needle to pull new loops of the working yarn through an existing piece of fabric, usually along an edge.

“Picking up and knitting” is more commonly done than plain old  “picking up”.

But this opens up a whole other can of worms.  Specifically, exactly where to pick the sts up, and how often — especially when you are creating new sts along the side edge of an existing piece, so you are doing sts to rows.

The subject of picking-up-and-knitting sts is covered thoroughly in many good knitting books, so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here.  I’ll just throw out a couple of tips:

  • Use a smaller needle when picking up and knitting, also.  The picked-up sts are usually way too loose if you use the same needle as for the body of the fabric. Use the smallest needle with which you can comfortably handle the yarn, and still be able to work the next row.
  • If you know you’re going to pick up and knit sts along an edge, give some thought to your choice of selvedge (edge st).  Using a selvedge that produces only 1 st for every 2 rows — for example, a slip-the-first-st type of selvedge — is going to make it a lot harder to pick up 3 sts for every 4 rows later on, if there are only 2 sts on the edge of those 4 rows to do it in.  (Ask me how I know this…)
  • Specific Problem 1:  picking up too few or too many sts, so that the new edge either puckers or flares.  Solution:  The ratio for sts-to-rows in stockinette st is usually 3 sts to every 4 rows, which I do using the mantra:  1, 2, 3, skip, 1, 2, 3, skip.

  • If you’re doing something other than stockinette-on-stockinette, then having a decent-sized gauge swatch is a really good vehicle for testing how many sts to pick up for a given number of rows. And speaking of gauge swatches, doing a *separate* gauge swatch for your trim can help, too, especially if it’s something funky from Nicky Epstein.  If you know that your seed st trim wants to be about 3 sts per inch, then it’s easy to keep an eye on how many sts you are picking up for every inch of base fabric.
  • Specific Problem 2: picking up sts inconsistently along the edge, i.e. not staying in a straight line but meandering back and forth. If you dive into the fabric a bit too far from the edge, and there is a bit of extra bulk in the back of your picked-up sts — that’s a lot less noticeable than if the pick-up line goes all over creation when it ought not to. Solution:  baste a guideline in contrast yarn before you get started.

So, be aware that even if your instructions are talking about “picking up”, there’s a good chance they probably still mean “picking up and knitting.”  And unfortunately, there’s not really any way to tell, except to read a bit further on and hope it becomes clear with additional explanation.

Happy Knitting!

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