German Short Rows

I'm getting really close to finishing the body.  I am just two short row sections from completing the body of this sweater, which is utterly thrilling.  This is where I started the day and I now have just eight little stitches to knit on to the back rectangle.

If by chance you are looking for a new short row technique, do consider German Short rows. For my style of knitting, it is a perfect match.

The last stitch on a row with work already turned, ready to slip to the right hand needle to do the turning stitch and ready to purl with the yarn in my usual in front of the knitting purl set up.

First, I slip the stitch and I take the working yarn and pull it to the back over the top of the needle and give it a good firm tug.  It lifts the bottom of the stitch up so that both legs of the turning stitch show on the needle.

I pull the yarn back to the purl side and enter stitch number two, ready to pick and purl. The turned stitch, from this vantage point looks as if there is only a single leg now, but the second leg is just pulled a bit on the needle and is out of sight at the moment. The yarn, ready to purl is between the turned stitch and the next to stitch.

When I have finished purling a few more stitches, I've turned tthe work to show you what it looks like from the knit side of the work.  You can easily see the two short row turned stitches, with the double leg over the needle, as well as the single stitch I am leaving between each turning point in the row. That extra stitch isn't required, it just give a bit gentler slope to the short row wedge.

When it comes time to knit that turned stitch, I just knit it in the regular knitted way.

Every other technique I tried for short rows left me with weird stitches, long loops or stitches I had to turn or mangle to get them to present the way they were supposed to.  I know that presentation of the stitches problem is because of the way I knit, but for every style of knitting, there is a way to approach everything to make your knitting wonderfully problem free. German short rows simply work for me.  No weirdness, no wonky too loose no matter what I seem to do.  It always works just so and leaves to back of the work nice and smooth.  Yes, you do see that something else happened there, that did not happen on plain knit and purl rows, but there is no weird and it is lovely.

German short rows.  Life changing.

Just a little note:  Pole is a great project to learn short rows on the purl side.  If anything, German short rows on the knit side of the work is even easier.  You just need a different project to see it and try it!