Do you know what I really bloody love? German short rows.

Seriously. They’re one of my very favourite knitting techniques. If you’ve knitted one of my patterns, then you’ll know that I use them a lot, but I’ve never felt compelled to truly sing their praises before.

Until now.

What are short rows?

Now, before I get all over-excited about German short rows, let’s take it back to basics a bit by answering the question “what are short rows?”

The answer, like many things in knitting, is suprisingly simple. Short rows are – as their name suggests – where you knit only part of a row before turning your work. You have to do a little bit of a something at the end of your partial row to stop a hole appearing there, but we’ll get to that later.

Why would you use short rows?

You mean other than because they’re brilliant?

They can be used for all sorts of things to do with shaping knitting; adding high-low hems, shaping shoulders, creating “chunks” of knitting within a pattern (as in my Set the Tone scarf), and even turning heels.

And what are German short rows?

German short rows are one technique that you can use to avoid those holes I mentioned earlier. A lot of people use the wrap and turn short row method and think it’s fine, but I can only assume that those people have never used German short rows. Because German short rows are way, way better.

What makes German short rows so good?

They’re really simple. Honestly, they’re so, so simple. When I tried the old wrap and turn back in my early days I got myself into a right pickle trying to pick up wraps and then dropping wraps and then forgetting to even do the wraps and oh it hurt my head.

There’s no faffing with wraps in German short rows. What you do instead is make the first stitch of your row into a “double stitch”, which sounds fancy but really isn’t.

So how do I make a double stitch?

Creating a double stitch is surprisingly easy, and weird satisfying. And it’s the same whether you’re working with a knit or purl stitch.

To create a double stitch, you bring your yarn to the front of your work, slip the first stitch onto your right hand needle, and pull the yarn over the top of your needle to make a stitch with two “legs”. That’s it.

Bet you thought it was going to be a more complex thing than that, didn’t you?

What about getting rid of the double stitch?

Once you’re done working your short rows and want to go back to knitting the full row – or round, because you can use them for knitting in the round as well – you just work the two “legs” of the double stitch together. If you’re on a knit row, you knit them together. If you’re on a purl row, you purl them. That’s it.

Can I see German short rows in action?

You can indeed. I’ve made a handy little video tutorial to German short rows and creating double stitches. It’s even got a cameo from my cat.

And just because I’m all kinds of lovely, I’ve also made a handy little reminder pin that you can use as a cheat sheet.

Got any questions about German short rows? Drop me a comment below, get in touch on Instagram, or even send me an email. In case you can’t tell, I love German short rows and will be very, very happy to help.