With Yarn In Front vs. With Yarn in Back

Hi everyone. I'm Jen Lucas for the Knitting Circle. In this video let's take a look at the instructions with yarn in front and with yarn in back. Oftentimes the knitting we're talking about right sides and wrong sides. So these instructions that involve front and back can be a little bit confusing especially if you're new to knitting.

It's really not that hard once you take a little time to sort of work it through and look at some examples which we're going to do in this video. So let's get started on with yarn in front and with yarn in back. So the direction of with yarn in front or with yarn in back sometimes but not always accompanies a direction to slip a stitch. So you'll see this a lot in slip stitch knitting but it is used in other applications but I am going to just talk about it in slip stitch knitting 'cause that is where you most often would see it. So your pattern is going to tell you what your abbreviations are for with yarn in front and with yarn in back.

So you would just check the abbreviation section of your pattern to get that information. I traditionally abbreviate it as WYIF for with yarn in front and WYIB for with yarn and back. So here I have a swatch of linen stitch, and we have a video on how to do linen stitch, if you are interested in learning the specific stitch pattern, but here is something where we would have a direction that would involve with yarn in front and with yarn in back. So if you look closely, this is my right side. So I have some knit stitches but then I also have these little bars going across and that was created by bringing the yarn to the front.

So with yarn in front, I was slipping a stitch. And then on the wrong side, it's harder to see on the wrong side, but when you're looking at it from the right side on the wrong sides I was pearling a stitch and then slipping the yarn slipping the stitch with the yarn in the back. So when I was on this side I was pearling a stitch and then slipping a stitch with the yarn in the back while the yarn to the back meant that it was going to this side, which is my right side. So that's where some people sometimes get a little bit confused is because we often talk about our knitting as right side, wrong side. But when you're slipping stitches and you're talking about something like with yarn in front or with yarn in back, you're not necessarily talking about right side or wrong side, front and back actually refer to which way you're looking at your fabric this way as you are knitting it.

So let me show you what I mean. I just have some stockinette stitch here, 'cause I think it would be a little bit easier to see how we're slipping stitches. So let's say we're knitting along and then for whatever reason, our pattern now is going to tell us to do some linen stitch. So we might do our right side row here as knitting one and then we're going to slip one with yarn in front. So we just net a stitch so our yarn's in the back.

So we're going to bring the stitch or excuse me bring the yarn between the needle to slip with the yarn in the front. So again, then we're bringing the yarn to the front Because that's what our pattern, this particular pattern told us to do. So yes, we are on the right side of our work and we're bringing the yarn to the front, but that's just because this is what this particular stitch pattern told us to do. Okay. And then I'll just finish this off here.

So, because we had the yarn in the back to do a knit stitch 'cause that's where the yarn goes when you're working in knit stitch, then we were slipping the next ditch with yarn in front. And so that's creating that little bar because the yarn was to the front so when we slip it, then go to work the next stitch it creates that little bar there. So then if we go to the wrong side again I'm just going to get a couple of stitches on the edge. We're going to Pearl one. So right when we Pearl, we have the yarn in the front and then in this particular example, we're going to say we're going to slip one with the yarn in the back while our yarn is in the front, right?

Because front is referring to how it's facing us. So we're going to bring the yarn to the back with yarn in back, slip one With yarn in back, slip one. So really, again, the most important thing to remember when thinking about with yarn in front and with yarn in back is that it does not necessarily it doesn't refer to right side, wrong side. It might work out that way sometimes, but with yarn in front and with yarn and back actually referred to right now I'm on the wrong side but this is the front of my work because it's facing me. And then this is the back of my work because it's facing away from me.

So that's the most important thing to remember when working these directions in your knitting patterns. As you can see with yarn and front and with yarn and back actually are very simple instructions to work. And with a little bit of practice you won't even really need to think about it it'll just come very naturally to you. I hope that you enjoyed this video here at the Knitting Circle. I'm Jen Lucas.

And I'll see you back here again real soon.