Better Three-Stitch Knit Bobble

 The Golden Hour shawl that I am making for the Relief Society room closet is coming along.  There are seven sections to the shawl.  I am using up yarn! At this point I am working on the second strip which includes two rows of bobbles (which is Section Six!!).  The first strip of bobbles had very ho-hum bobbles.  I saw a video about making bobbles then I saw another one.  Both were making five-stitch bobbles.  This shawl pattern uses three-stitch bobbles.

As you can see, the upper bobbles are rather wimpy-looking.  The lower bobbles really pop out.

Sadly, I did not keep track of the videos I watched.  I was so excited to see the techniques that I just went for them.  Maybe one day I will make a little video showing how I do them.  In the meantime, here is text describing my process.

Knit to the spot where you want the bobble.  The pattern calls for KFBF (knit in the front, then knit in the back, then knit in the front of the same stitch again before taking it off the left needle.  The girl whose video I watched suggested to Knit, Purl, Knit in the same stitch instead before taking off the needle and proceeding with the bobble.  So much better.  Well, a little bit neater anyway.

Next step is to knit back backwards!  Yes!  You can do it.  Go to YouTube and find instructions which may be better than what I say.  Elizabeth Zimmermann is the first person I heard speak of knitting back backwards.  THIS MEANS YOU NEVER NEED TO PURL AGAIN IN FLAT KNITTING!      Such a convenient thing.

Basically what I did was to insert the left needle into the back of the stitch on the right needle, wrap the working yarn around then pull the stitch off the needle.  Slick as a whisker!

Next you will knit back from right to left.  (This is your third row of knitting...(first row:making three stitches out of one stitch, second row: knitting back backwards --or you can turn your work and purl but I don't do that anymore-, third row: just knit the stitches.  Finally you bind off.)

Now "bind off" the stitches:  as in-- insert the left needle tip into the front of the second stitch on the right needle and lift it off over the first stitch on the right needle.  Now with the left needle tip, insert into front of the third stitch on the right hand needle and lift it over the first stitch.  You now have one stitch on the needle having gone from three stitches to one stitch.

The thing that makes the bobble really pop out is next:  take the working yarn and move it between the needle and the bobble, bring it around the bottom of the bobble and behind the bobble  then insert the right needle tip into the next stitch on the left needle and pull the working yarn tight and knit the next stitches until you get to the next stitch for the next bobble placement.  You are basically strangling the little bobble.  It works great.  Maybe soon I will try to make a video if this seems unclear.  Let me know!