The Spring Coil Stitch
A Springy 3D Texture!
The spring coil stitch is a fun stitch that creates an unusual 3D 'spring' in your knitting. One coil is created from just one stitch, and the pattern I use in the demo is a 6 row pattern repeat.
Even beginners can have a go because knowledge of only knit and purl stitches is required.
It's a brilliant texture, and although I recommend watching the video below to help you (as the technique is very unique!), I have also written the pattern and instructions below in case you prefer to read instructions rather than watch them :)
Written Pattern:
First, cast on a multiple of 4 stitches.
Row 1 (RS): k
Row 2: p
Row 3: k
Row 4: p1 *spring coil stitch, k1, p2
Repeat from * until you have 3 stitches left, then spring coil stitch, k1, p1
Row 5: k
Row 6: p3 *spring coil stitch, k1, p2
Repeat from * until you have 5 stitches left, then spring coil stitch, k1, p3
Repeat rows 1-6 as many times as you wish.
The Spring Coil Stitch:
Make sure the working yarn is at the back, behind your knitting needles.
Take the right-hand needle up through the top stitch on the left-hand needle as if you were going to knit it. But instead, you keep your needles in the crossed position. The right-hand needle should be at the back.
Push your stitches down the needles a bit to make sure that there is enough of the needle tips exposed to accommodate the spring coil stitch we're going to make in the next step...
Take your working yarn and wrap it around the crossed needle points anti-clockwise 10 times. Start wrapping just above where the needles cross, and as you wrap, the yarn will build upwards towards the needle points. Keep the yarn snug with the needles but don't wrap too tightly, otherwise the next step will be difficult!
Take the working yarn and basically do the same steps as a knit stitch. So you wrap the yarn anti-clockwise around the right-hand needle point and then hold the yarn next to the right-hand needle.
Then - and this is the tricky bit - use your right-hand needle point to guide the working yarn (the part that's now between the needle points), down through the centre of all of the 10 'wraps' of yarn. Bring it through to the front of the needles and then complete the stitch by pushing the coil of yarn off the left-hand needle.
* At this point, don't be tempted to pull on the working yarn! *
Instead, loosely hold the coil of yarn between your fingers and stretch it out to the right, pulling the coil along the working yarn until the coiled yarn straightens out.
Then pull the working yarn to the right to form a neat coil. It's up to you how tight or loose you make this coil, but you want to make sure that they are consistent throughout your knitting project, so that they all look the same.
And then you just carry on with your knitting project.
I hope you enjoy trying out this stitch!