Knit Box Pleat
Knitting a box pleat is far easier than it may seem… some slipped stitches, some folds, and some knitting three together! In the end, two folds create deep dimension in your knit fabric, reminiscent of a sewing technique. This knit box pleat is worked over 28 stitches, with each fold taking up 7 stitches, but the same techniques applies to any number of stitches divisible by four. Make one or two simple box pleats for dramatic effect or try a whole row of them for full and cascading skirts or curtains. Our detailed Knit Box Pleat Tutorial shows you how to do it!
Click To See Video Transcript
Hi, I am going to be showing you how to work a box pleat. And this is something, this is a technique that we use in our box pleat top.
We’re going to start by knitting seven stitches. Then we’re going to load the next seven stitches slipping as if to purl onto our first double pointed needle. We’ll call that needle A. Like so. We’re going to do that one more time with needle B. And this is our starting setup for our first fold: we have our right main needle, needle a, needle B, and our left main needle. And the way that we work our first fold is you take needles A and B, and you put them into a V like so, and you fold that V together like this, and you’re going to take the folded V and place it in the front of your left main needle just like this.
And then you’re going to line your needles up. And what we’re going to be doing is we’re going to be knitting three stitches together off of these three needles. And you can do it with your right main needle. But I find it’s a bit easier to take another double pointed needle to knit the three together. And how it works is that you just go into the first needle, first stitch the second stitch, and then the third stitch, and you knit those three together. Like this, and you slide all three off your needle at once like this. It could be a bit tricky, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. So you go into the first stitch, the second, and then the third and knit three together and then slide all three off your needle. And we’re going to be doing that seven times like so.
And then put your needles double pointed aside for a moment, and then you’re going to take the stitches that you just worked and you’re going to place them back onto your right main needle slipping as if to purl, just like so. And that gives us the first part of our fold for our box plate, just like that. For the second fold, we’re going to repeat what we just did on this side and that we’re going to take another double pointed needle and we can call it needle A. You can let your working yarn fall to the back and slip as if to purl seven stitches to needle A, and then take another needle and put seven onto it.
So it looks like the fold that we just worked to start. The difference here is instead of putting the needles A and B into a V this way, we’re going to put it in an upside down V like this. And then we’re going to put them together. And unlike this side where we put the fold in front of our left main needle, we’re going to put the fold to the back of the left needle. I’m going to line our needles and our stitches up just as we did for the other side, and knit the three stitches together just as we did for that side.
Again, using, I like to use another double pointed needle to do that. So you’re going to go in the first, the second, and the third stitch and knit the three together and slide the three off your needle… Like so. It helps sometimes to just pause and line them up and make sure that you’re getting through all three, and slip off your needle. And again, you’re going to do that seven times. Put our two down, and once again, we’re going to take the stitches that we just worked and load them back on slipping as if to purl our right main needle.
And then you just knit the remaining stitches to the end, and that gives us our box pleat. And you have the stitches neatly, neatly joined together. And then this is what it looks like in the back and you can block it. And that is our box pleat.
Our free Box Pleat Top pattern, designed by Kristina McGowan, features this lovely detail at each shoulder and is a great starter project if you’re eager to give this clever technique 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!
Great tutorial! “Thank You!” It really helps an avid knitter tackle a new project with confidence. : )
Hi Patricia, thanks a lot! It’s great to hear that the video helped!
Thank you. Great tutorial!
Thanks so much for this fantastic video and pattern. I’m super excited to try this!
Thank you, it’s a great technique, and in this video it’s perfectly explained. One detail: so, for each pleat (using the numbers of the example in the video) I actually make a 14 stitches decrease? Thank you
Hi Alessia! Thanks so much and yes! The total stitches decreased in working the box pleat is 28 (14 stitches for each pleat/fold)!
Very clear and Great tutorial, calm and soothing voice, thanks! I’m going to give it a try, definitely!!
Thank you for this tutorial. I was referred here from the Honey Pie pattern by Froginette. Extremely helpful.
I would like to apply this technique, but I do not want to decrease stitches. Should I increase them in the next round?
Does it make sense?
Regards,
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for reaching out! Unfortunately you can’t work a pleat without losing some stitches, and while you could increase on the next row, you would end up with a tight area where the pleats were worked and increasing rapidly in the next row to replace the lost stitches would result in a bubbled or flared appearance. Although I’m not sure if this would work for your garment, I would instead suggest increasing a few rows before the pleat, or ideally casting on more stitches at the beginning of the item to allow for the pleat later.
Best of luck, and I hope that helps!
Julianna
Wonderfully helpful! I was about ready to teach hair out trying to follow a set of written instructions. Thank you..