Embroidering on knitting is an excellent skill to have if you are looking to be any sort of knitwear designer. It is very much like embroidering on normal embroidery cloth so if you have experience with conventional embroidery then embroidering on knitting will be no problem at all. You will just need to understand the knit fabric. If you knit then you will also have a good grasp of what is happening with the fabric. If you are new to embroidery then do not worry because embroidery on knitting is pretty easy to get the hang of.
Why Embroider On Knitting?
You may want to embroider your knitting to add small embellishments like small colorwork details or enhance other knitting colorwork. You would not want to use stranded knitting or Fair Isle style knitting to place very small sections of color on a large piece of knit fabric. Embroidery is a much more economical and relatively easy way to add small, different colored details to almost any knitting project. And example would be if you had a hat featuring knit flowers done in large colorwork sections. If you wanted to add a third or even a fourth color to some of the flowers in small sections on the pedals then embroidery would be the way to go.
What You Need
- a tapestry needle
- a piece of background fabric in stockinette stitch
- a good length of contrasting yarn for the actual embroidery
- a pair of scissors or a yarn cutter for finishing
Getting Started
With any embroidery you need to understand the structure of the fabric you are working with. If you have embroidered before you will quickly notice that knit fabric is very similar to canvas cloth once you understand what is happening. Yarn is much thicker in diameter than the fibers that make up canvas so doing embroidery on knitting might actually be easier simply because it is easier to see.
If you look at the front size of your stockinette knit fabric and you start at the edge and follow the fiber you will see that it curls like a wave with the neighboring fiber. When you embroider on knitting you want to follow the knit fibers and the color you are embroidering with will essentially be overlapping the knit stitches where you are adding the color.
Embroidering On Knitting
You will begin working on the front side. Insert the threaded tapestry needle behind your chosen stitch then follow that stitch either up or down and then insert your needle behind the stitch next to it. When you pull the needle and embroidering yarn tight you should notice that you covered up one of the original stitches. Go back into the same place where you initially inserted the needle and you will then have your V-shaped knit stitch, but it is embroidered in a different color. The needle should come out behind the stitch next to it. Repeat this process across from right to left.
