Duplicate Stitch
Duplicate Stitch, or Swiss Darning as it is sometimes called, is a decorative stitch usually worked over stockinette stitch. Its basic concept is in its name: You sew over your finished knitting with a contrast color, “duplicating” the original stitches. It’s easier than Fair Isle or intarsia, and best of all, Duplicate Stitch can be an after-thought, when you think you’ve finished something and it’s just not quite enough! Here’s our Duplicate Stitch tutorial, where we show you how to do it.
Notes
For your duplicate stitches, you’ll probably want to use yarn that is either the same as the knitting yarn you used or thicker. Thinner yarn won’t cover the knit stitches as well.
A good method for planning out your strategy is to mark the stitches you’re going to “duplicate” with an erasable fabric pen. Winging it is fine too!
Here, we work the Duplicate Stitch over the “A” oriented stitches, rather the “V” oriented ones. This was simply a design decision, but either way, the technique is the same. You can find some visuals and tips for working over the “V” stitches at the end of this tutorial.
Begin
First, cut a length of yarn no longer than 24 inches (longer and the yarn will probably start to look a bit ratty from being sewn so many times!). Thread it onto a tapestry needle.
Bring your needle from the back of the work to the front through the top point of a stitch, or an “A.” (Leave a 6-inch tail in the back so you can weave it in at the end.)
Next, cross the needle under the stitch BELOW the one you are duplicating.
To finish that stitch, insert the needle back into the top of the “A” (the same place where you began), and at the same time, begin the next stitch by exiting the needle at its top point. One stitch duplicated and ready for the next one!
The next step is always to cross the needle under the stitch below the one you’re duplicating.
And then, no matter what direction you need to move in, you always finish a stitch by inserting the needle into its top and begin the next stitch by exiting the needle at its top.
Here’s what finishing a stitch and starting a new one looks like if you’re moving up a vertical column…
Sometimes when you cross the needle under the below stitch, you’ll have to sew under both the original stitch and the duplicate stitch. That’s okay!
As you work, don’t pull the yarn too tight or it will thin out and not adequately cover the knit stitches. Try to keep a loose, but even, tension.
When you run out of yarn, weave the tail into the back of the work and start a new length of yarn.
Keep going until you’re done!
“V” Stitches
To work duplicate stitch over the “V” stitches, you simply start at the bottom point of the stitch…
…and bring the needle under the stitch ABOVE the one you’re duplicating.
Alphabet Charts
We used duplicate stitch for our Monogrammed Hats For Everyone, a very basic hat with the perfect opportunity to practice your new skill!
These charts show you how to make the entire alphabet in duplicate stitch. They are based on a gauge of 3 stitches to the inch. If you use them on knitting that’s in a different gauge, they may be proportioned differently, but give it a try!
Looking for more inspiration? Explore all of our free knitting patterns and knitting tutorials, buy one of our many knitting kits and yarn bundles, and shop for beautiful yarn. We have over 35 gorgeous natural fiber yarns in 100’s of magnificent colors, designed to bring integrity, beauty, and joy to your next knitting project and only available at Purl Soho!
The answer to my prayers. I have been struggling with duplicate stitch on a pair of socks from Lucy Neatby.
You have just changed my life. Using an erasable fabric marker…brilliant!
That is the easiest tutorial for duplicate stitch I’ve ever seen! I have no idea why I was afraid of it…
thank you!!
Thank you thank you thank you! I think I’ll finally try this soon 🙂
That is brilliant to use the marker pen – so much easier to do the stitching if you don’t have to watch the pattern at the same time.
Thank you!
What type of marker did you use?
I live in the UK but I cannot find a marker to apply on wool but just fabric (I’m not sure if it matters?)
I hope you can help me! Regards Joan ?
Hi Joan,
Thanks for reaching out! While most fabric markers should work equally well on wool and cotton, it’s always a good idea to patch test to make sure it will wash out well. We have had good luck using Clover Chaco Pens on wool!
Best,
Julianna
Ok, I am totally in love and DEFINITELY will be doing this on one of my next projects !! 🙂 🙂
Thank you! I’ve tried duplicate stitch before based on written instructions and my results were less than satisfactory. There were always parts I couldn’t quite visualize. I can’t wait to use my new understanding.
Thanks so much for doing this tute! The pen marks on the stitch itself showed me how I was going wrong. My project turned out amazing! 🙂
Thank you sooooo much! I am new to this knitting thing but am trying to make Christmas presents. This was a wonderful tutorial!
Oh thank you, thank you for having a simple (with very good illustrations!) tutorial for duplicate stitch. This is going to be MUCH easier for me than trying to writing in intarsia.
This is wonderful… but what happened to the other photos? 🙁
Thanks so much for the tutorial on duplicate stitch! It is very helpful! I am a long time knitter, but one who has never tackled intricate Christmas stockings because they looked too complicated. This year I am completing one for a new member of our family, thanks to your easy instructions.
Oh my gosh!! Thank you so much for this terrific tutorial! I am making Twilight (the movie) socks for my daughter and I have been having a very difficult time making the stitches….come to find out I have been trying to make these up side down! No wonder I have been having so much trouble making it look nice!
Now I have to frog the other sock, because it will be opposite this sock!!! At least it will finally look like it’s supposed to.
“So easy. So satisfying” is right! Last week I spent an entire morning trying to figure this out and failed miserably. This morning, I stitched a whole name onto the stocking in question in about an hour. Thanks for posting such clear instructions (and photos!).
This is such a perfect explanation! I promise that the next pattern or anything else crafty I buy will be one of yours. Scout’s honor.
I love your site! Im doing a watermelon hat pattern involving duplicate stitching for the seeds, is it ok to link?
Hi! I am a new knitter, and I read somewhere that duplicate stitching must be done over a stockinette stitch. Is this true, or could I use this method for duplicate stitching over a garter stitch? Thank you so much for this tutorial, I found it very helpful and easy to follow!
Crystal
Hi Crystal,
I've never done duplicate stitching on garter stitch before, but I did find this step by step tutorial for you to try: http://math4knitters.blogspot.com/2008/07/duplicate-stitch-on-garter-stitch.html. It doesn't look as versatile as stockinette stitch for creating images but may be great for simple patterns!
Good luck and thanks for your question!
Whitney
Thanks so much for such easy directions. Although I have been knitting many, many years, I have never tried to Duplicate stitch yet and this has been a god sent. Thanks again.
Whitney,
Thank you very much for the link for duplicate stitching on top of a garter stitch, I will be sure to try it out…. in the meantime I used your 'heart' stitch pattern on a pair of leg warmers for my one year old niece and they turned out great! Thanks again!
Crystal
Thank you so much – so simple! Battled with other instructions for over an hour last night. This took 5 mins! Magical 😉
When do you recommend blocking a garment with a duplicate stitch? Before, or after adding the duplicate stitch? Thank you for this clear instructions and images!!
Melissa
HI Melissa,
I suppose It depends on the state of your knitting. If your stitches are quite uneven, then you might want to do a round of blocking before you add the duplicate stitching, but if your stitches look good, I think it's fine to just start right in with the duplicate stitch. Either way, duplicate stitch does benefit from a final blocking.
Thanks for asking!
Whitney
and I finally understood what a duplicate stitch is and how to do it, thank you very much!
Your pictures and explanations are the best, again thanks for these great tutorials 🙂
Is there a way to do a duplicate stitch that also looks nice on the back side?
Thanks!
Hi Jennifer!
If you are asking in regards to weaving in ends, than check out our tutorial here! You’ll see duplicate stitch worked in a different color on both sides at that tutorial. As you can see, for color work, duplicate stitch doesn’t quite work the same on the reverse side.
Thanks for your question!
Thomas
So this may be a strange question, but is there a way using duplicate stitch to create knit stitches over reverse stockinette? I made some fox ears and to create a ridge on the outside, I did two knit stitches and then on the interior did purl stitches. Now I want to stitch on white and black in the interior, but I want them to look like knit stitches. I’m having trouble figuring out which holes to go in and put of! Let me know if you have any thoughts.
Hi Maria,
Thank you for the great question! Normally with the duplicate stitch technique you follow the existing stitch pattern to create detailed color-work without incorporating it structurally into the knitting. However I am always an advocate for experimentation! In this case you will be treating the duplicate stitch more like a piece of embroidery. You will want to create a system for how you stitch down the knit stitches into the reverse stockinette piece of knitting. I would also recommend experimenting with other techniques like crocheting into the knit or doing a embroidery/cross-stitch technique on a piece of knitting!
I hope this helps and I’d love to hear how it works out!
Good Luck!
Jake
Thank you so much for this, I’ve searched for hours on the internet for duplicate stitch but the way they were doing it was so confusing to me. I just couldn’t pick it up.
You have made it so simple, now I feel I can do this.
Thank you, thank you, thank you
I am also having trouble with viewing the duplicate stitch tutorial. The letter templates don’t appear anywhere that I can see and the photo demonstrations that had accompanied the text are also no longer appearing. I’ve viewed it a number of times in the past without either of these problems. Is It possible to have these missing parts emailed to me?
Thanks for your help!
Hi Caryn,
I am sorry to hear that you are having difficulty! The templates appear after the instructions as images on the page above. If you are having difficulty seeing them, I would suggest closing the web browser completely and then relaunching it. Sometimes an error loading a page can cause issues with the images loading and I find that restarting the web browser almost always fixes the issue. Please let us know if you continue to have difficulties!
Best,
Cassy
One of my customers asked for this on a hat….can this be worked in the ribbing?
Hi Elisabeth,
Thanks for writing. This cannot be used on a rib stitch — only stockinette fabric.
-Adam
All the duplicate stitch tutorials Inhave seen are for one side of the work only e.g. A hat, jumper etc. however, I want to do a double sided duplicate stitch for a blanket – where the design is the same on both sides. Any help, please?
Hi Helen,
Thanks for writing us. Unfortunately there is no way to do a double sided duplicate stitch ( that I know of) where it looks like knits on one side and purls on the other. What you are seeking is best achieved through intarsia. I hope this helps!
-Adam
I would like to enlarge the template to fit my grandaughter’s 5 letter name onto a large blanket that I am doing all in stockinette with a big section repeated 3 times. My stockinette ” field ‘ is 220 stitches wide and 44 rows deep. How big should the letters be and how spaced. I would like to have the letters at least 2 inches tall.
Hi Jo,
Thanks for writing in and apologies for the delayed response! Based on your description, I think that you will need to rework the letters to fit your needs as our letters are quite a bit smaller than your needs. Depending on how large your letters will be, you may need more or less space between each letter. I would suggest using some knitter’s graph paper to draw up a field as you describe above and then map out the letters using ours as inspiration.
I hope that this helps!
Cassy
Do you have any recommendations for other pattern templates? I want to embellish my granddaughter’s little dress with some poppies – and am reluctant to draw my own. My thanks,
Liza
Hi Liza,
Thanks for the question! We do not have any additional patterns for duplicate stitch available at present. I might suggest checking out Ravelry. You can search by different techniques in their advanced search. This might be a good way to figure things out. Additionally, you can draw your own using Knitter’s Graph Paper. Using this paper, you can sketch out your pattern over the number of stitches that you have available and then use that template to embroider on your grand daughter’s dress!
I hope that this helps!
Cassy
Thanks Cassy. This is going to take longer than I thought. Good thing she is still very young!
I would like to turn your alphabet swatch into a small blanket. How many stitches did you cast on for each letter?? I’m an artist with a project knitting lots of texts…any other tips you can give about knitting texts? Thanks for the fantastic tutorial!
Hi Judy,
Thanks for writing in and for the kind words! We used about 20 stitches for each swatch. Rather than knitting individual squares for a blanket (which would require a LOT of seaming!), I would probably start by planning out your text on graph paper or in a spreadsheet, using our letter charts for reference, so you can decide how many stitches to cast on to fit all of your desired text. If you would like separation between the letters, you could add vertical and horizontal stripes of either seed stitch or garter stitch to delineate squares without having to sew together many small pieces!
Best of luck, and please let us know how your blanket turns out!
Julianna
Thanks for another great tutorial! Do the Clover Chaco Pens work with acrylic and cotton yarns?
Hello Lee,
Thank you for reaching out! The Clover Chaco pen will work great.
Happy knitting!
-Marilla
Is there a specific weight of thread that you use? I do counted cross stitch and want to try this.
Hi Vickey,
Thanks for reaching out! For your duplicate stitches, you’ll probably want to use yarn that is either the same as the knitting yarn you used or thicker. Thinner yarn won’t cover the knit stitches as well. Hope this helps!
All the best,
Lili
Hi,
I have done a lot of duplicate stitch, among my knitting friends I am the ‘go to’ person for teaching or helping with this technique. That said, I was looking for duplicate st. letters that are tall enough for what I need so that I didn’t have to design them…lowandbehold AND no surprise – Purl Soho’s are exactly the size/height I need.
As always, Purl Soho is the best site on the ‘web’ for all things knitting. I should have thought to look here first!
Alice