How To
Techniques in Depth: Ladders, Begone!
Ladders.
It’s one of those words that elicits very different responses depending on your hobbies. If you’re into home improvement, you probably love them! Knitters, not so much.
Sometimes knitters use the term “ladder” to describe what happens when you drop a stitch and it unravels, but that’s not the topic today. The ladders we’re looking at here result when the first stitch on a needle is larger than the rest.
Ladders can appear when working in the round, most specifically when you’re using a small circumference method like DPNs, magic loop, or two circulars.
That first stitch of the round is too big!
Ladders happen because yarn has to travel further to get from the stitch at the end of one needle to the stitch at the start of the next needle than it has to travel between two stitches side by side on a needle. You’re using a little bit more yarn each time you cross a gap like that, and the extra yarn gets taken into the first stitch on the left-hand needle, making it larger.
The working yarn is having to cover a larger distance.
When I first started making socks, I didn’t get much laddering at all, but when I switched to metal needles and starting knitting a little tighter, I started to see them.
A recently finished sock with a smaller ladder in the center of the sole. I’m not bothered.
If you’re pulling your stitches on your needles pretty darn tight, then that “extra” length will be proportionately even larger. Not everyone experiences this, but if you do, I offer some solutions, in increasing order of Seriousness:
Don’t Worry About It
If the ladders aren’t huge, I find that they often resolve themselves with washing and wearing. Particularly if it’s a sock that’s worn with negative ease—the constant stretching and resettling of the fabric tends to tidy things up nicely.
Don’t Start a Needle With a Purl
If you’re working a stitch pattern that’s a mix of knits and purls, arrange things so that the first stitch of each needle is a knit stitch.
A (conventional, Western, not-combination) purl stitch requires more yarn than a knit stitch. That over-the-needle wrap of the purl is longer than the under-the-needle wrap of the knit, meaning that your purl stitches will be bigger than your knits in the best of circumstances. Then if the yarn is having to travel further—between the needle tips—it’s bigger again. And it’s even a little bigger because the yarn is having to come around to the front of the work.
Pull the Second Stitch Tight
If the problem is that the first stitch of the needle is too big, then make the next stitch as tight as you can, so that the two of them average out to something more normal. (No, pulling the first stitch doesn’t help, since needle tips tend to get in the way.)
Work With Purl Side to Inside
If you’re working stockinette-based fabric, make sure your round is arranged so that the knit side is to the outside. This reduces the path that the yarn is taking between stitches. If you’re working with purl side out, the yarn is traveling a longer path between knit stitches.
This position is less likely to produce ladders.
More likely to ladder, since the working yarn is traveling around the outside.
Change Needle Type
Every knitter holds the needle and yarn slightly differently. Some knitters find the ladder situation is better on some types of needles than others. For example—if you tend to see bigger ladders on DPNs, consider trying magic loop.
Rearrange Stitches As You Go
Because ladders form at the first stitch on a needle, when you’re using traditional DPNs, you can make the bigger stitches less prominent by shifting which stitch is first. When you have worked across all the stitches of one needle, use the current working needle (rather than the newly emptied needle) to work the first stitch of the next needle. This constantly shifts which stitch is the first one on each needle. As long as you use a stitch marker before the first stitch of a round, you’ll keep your place.
The Hungry Stitch
Here’s a method to reduce the size of that first stitch. If you’re doing this, make sure that each needle starts with a knit—this method is less easy (and less fun) if there are purls involved!
Work a setup round: Work around, slipping knitwise the first stitch of each needle.
After the setup round, the first stitch of each needle has a “float.”
This leaves those first stitches “hungry” because they didn’t get the working yarn pulled through them. The working yarn sits at the back, like a stranded colorwork float.
For all following rounds, work the first stitch of each needle with the previous yarn’s float, as follows: Put the tip of the working needle into that first stitch, grab the float and pull it through—like crochet, basically! Then work across the rest of needle as normal.
And that’s it! This makes the first stitch of each needle smaller, because the float is a shorter length of yarn than you’d normally use to work the stitch.
You can work this method all the way through the project, but if you need to transition to normal knitting at any given round, close up as follows: Work the first stitch with the previous round’s float, but then return the stitch to the left needle and work it again normally.
The one downside to this method is that it can produce a tighter-than-normal first stitch. But those resolve with washing and wearing.
In the MDK Shop
Mind the Marker
You can also get ladders when you’re working the “full circulars” method if there’s an obstacle causing the yarn to travel further between stitches. The usual culprit is a larger stitch marker. If the yarn gets caught around it, you’re adding too much yarn to that first stitch.
Ladder Risk Alert!
The solution in this case is to use a smaller marker, or just take care to ensure that the yarn is not getting caught around it.
Flipping the bulky bit of the stitch marker to the front of the work keeps it out of the way.
Wouldn’t This Come in Handy?
I’m a firm believer in rearranging the stitches as I go with the caveat that I knit in the round with a total a five DPNs. With four I find the torque between the needles is a little to fiddly. Simply knitting a stitch (or a few) of the next needle before I start with the new working needle is smooth and easy for me where the other methods involve more paying attention and, dare I say it, thinking. If I’m cranking on a sock, I usually don’t want to think. I also am generous with my stitch markers. I add them at the beginning and end of the gusset when I’m doing a flap heel and the same for the toe. There can be a tiny bit of visibility but it wiggles itself out on the first was, never to be seen again.
I do the same – working an extra stitch or 2 on each needle as I go round.
Ha, this is what I do too – 5 dpns IS easier than 4, and I also use the last stitch from the previous needle to become the 1st stitch on the next. Also I use the lockable stitch markers as pictured above – if they cause a baggy stitch issue, I move them from the needles to fabric below, sitting between the relevant stitches as they would be so I know where the BOR or similar is/was, and move them up every 20 rounds or so (I usually knit jumpers and cardigans).
Another fan of jump rings here! I also like to make a chain of them (with a different market at one end of the chain) if I’m counting rows. Each time I come to the marker, I pick up the next ring of the chain. Once I’m through the chain I know I’ve knit 5 rows or 10 rows or whatever.
Heidi, that is brilliant! I want to leave work, go home, and make a little chain right now!
Great idea! Thanks
Brilliant!
PS. I buy little packs of jump rings in the jewelry section of any of the chain craft stores to use as makers in the round. They’re nice and small for sock knitting, are easy to slip, and are very thin wire so they don’t get in the way.
I’m going to try the jump rings. Thanks for mentioning it.
I magic loop all small circumference knitting and snugging up the 2nd stitch has always worked for me, even when a purl is the first stitch (that and the Don’t Worry About It solution!)
Magic loop is my technique….works for most situations..deb
With magic loop, the last stitch worked on one side is left on the thin cable (not the points of the needle). As I begin the first stitch on the next side, I pull the yarn snug, making a smaller than normal stitch on that cable. This balances out any extra yarn in that first stitch.
I was just thinking about this yesterday, while magic looping a fingerless mitt. Works for me, too!
Hmmm. When I knit colour work Mittens, I turn them purlside out to get longer floats. This also results in ladders at the beginning of needles. (Two circulars) So if I slip the first stitch, etc., I could tighten up that stitch!
I have been thinking I should needle felt the gaps together! #Kate always has a better way
I rotate my beginning of round when working on DPNs for the opposite reason—I get “inverse ladders” at the transition between needles where the two stitches on either side of the transition pull together much tighter than the rest of the stitches. Other than loosening up, any suggestions for that?
When working small circumference things, I use 2 20-inch circulars, each usually having half the stitches. When I get to the end of the half-round, I pull the needle so that both ends are in the correct position for its next use. This means the stitches completed are sitting on the wire, a much narrower diameter than the needle. I begin the next half-round, knit or purl, without a worry of a large stitch…it just seems to work out.
I belong to the Don’t Worry About It school of thought. In general, by the time they have been worn and washed once or twice, the ladders have worked themselves out.
Socks. The only thing I generally knit in the round is socks, and they are for me anyway.
Nice article I am very surprised that you didn’t mention that if knit your socks using 5 .needles you can make the ladders all invisible
I’m so glad you’ve found a solution that works for you. It depends very much on your individual knitting style – I could work with 20 DPNs and I think I’d still get them!
I work on five needles and still get ladders. I think it’s one of those things where we all have our own little quirks so need a whole bunch of trial and error to see what works best. I rearrange the stitches as I around and around which is super easy to do one five needles.
Thank you for this article! I still struggle with pesky ladders, especially if I am working on circulars or using the Magic Loop method. Working with 5 DPNs helped improve my laddering when I work with small projects like socks. I appreciate having some new methods for working with other knitting tools.
I like the new flexiflip needles. I don’t have laddering problems with them.
Agreed! I’ve never gotten laddering with flexiflips.
I snug up the last stitch on the needle (using DPNs) kind of strongly, and the first stitch on the next needle a little less strongly. Seems to me like the weight (of the yarn? the stitches on the previous needle?) is pulling backwards a little bit and needs to be re-directed. That, and the occasional shifting of a few stitch every 10 rounds or so, seems to eliminate ladders for me.
I hesitate to mention this since it smacks of elephant guns and mosquitoes. But if the ladders really bother you, this works. In your first round, leave one stitch at each junction on a safety pin. Knit away merrily, ignoring ladders. When you get where you’re going, use a crochet hook to pick up that stitch in the first round and zoom up the ladder just as if you had dropped a stitch. Instant perfect! I wouldn’t try this in a pattern stitch, or garter. That would be weird.
You point out how the travel distance between those last and next sts is the problem. I deal with it by reducing that distance through positioning the needles appropriately before making the first st on the next section. Thus, whatever the combination of first and last sts, find the right position of needles–over, under–that makes the yarn bridge between them shortest. If it takes a finger to hold it that position while the st is being worked, that soon becomes automatic. Preventing ladders makes more sense to me than remedial measures afterward.
Very useful help with knitting ladders. The advice from most other sites didn’t really help. Thank YOU.
On the subject of ladders, yours is the first post I’ve seen (and I’ve seen plenty as this is a seemingly incorrectable problem for me) that offers any new techniques, and also does a great job explaining the “why” of ladders. Thank you so much.