What happens when you knit into rows below?

My curious mind doesn’t stop, especially when it comes to knitting and designing. Because I had 2 Deluxe Superwash yarns that were the same color, I thought I’d experiment to see how I could use these 2 yarns together in the same swatch. Knitting into the row below, or in this case rows below, produced some interesting results.

The bulky yarn rows were basically a 3×3 ribbing, but I used garter stitch in between the columns of stockinette stitch instead of the usual reverse stockinette stitch. Then, I let the worsted weight yarn “do all the work” making the stitch pattern look interesting.

The first maneuver I did with the worsted weight yarn was to work a double decrease/double increase in the same stitch. To do this, I slipped 2 stitches together, as if I were going to knit them together. Then in the 3^rd stitch I knit 1, made a yarn over, knit 1, all in the same stitch. Then I took the 2 slipped stitches — now the 4^th and 5^th stitches on the right-hand needle — passed them over the first 3 stitches, and voila!

The second technique, the one where I knit into rows below, happened in the center stitch of each garter stitch section. I inserted the needle just below the garter stitch bump, not just 1 row below, but 4 rows below. This is the 2^nd garter stitch bump of the center stitch. Then I knit through as usual, trapping all the strands of yarn that had been knit into that center stitch in the rows above. This brings up a lovely “V” shaped knit stitch and after a bit of massaging, there are strands that drape outwards to the left and right from behind the V. I really like this look.

If I were to try this again, I’d use the Deluxe DK superwash weight instead of the worsted weight for an even greater contrast and a lacier look. Hmmm, I wonder what it would look like in 2 different colors.

Here’s the stitch chart for you to try this yourself. Please share pictures of what your project or swatch looks like.