Category:
Bind-Offs
Video: Ruffle Bind-Off
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Characteristics: recommended, slow
Difficulty: Intermediate
This is an intermediate bind-off that is will make a nice, big, girly ruffle, be it at the top of a toe-up baby sock, on the button band of a kimono-style sweater, or at the bottom or top of a girls’ skirt.
The trick to this bind-off isn’t so much in the actual binding-off itself, but in the setups rows that precede the bind-off.
Recommended Materials: Very pointy needles (at least for increase row)
Instructions
- K1. Do not drop st off L needle.
- K1 tbl. Do not drop st off L needle.
- K1. St comes off L needle.
- K1. Do not drop st off L needle.
- K1 tbl. St comes off L needle.
- Repeat steps 1-5 across.
- You have 2.5 times the # of sts you started with. Turn.
- Start purling across WS.
- Tip: place a marker around a st in the row after you purl it. This will help you keep track later.
- Do a total of 5 rows of St st.
- 5 rows finished. The marker marks row #1. The row on the needle always counts.
- BO using the Frilled Standard Bind-Off or any stretchy bind-off.
Tips
Just a simple tip: when you are doing the increase steps, the stitches will get cramped up on your needle. Make sure to push the stitches down to the barrel of the needle every so often so they don’t get jammed up at the tip.
Ruffle Bind-Off - Step-by-Step Photo Instructions

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More Information
How it works: On the RS row before you want to create the ruffle, you increase drastically across the row (which, by the way, means you’re going to want to use some very pointy knitting needles).
Then you knit a few rows in St st and these rows, being crowded because you’ve increased the number of stitches so much, kind of fold back on each other — that’s what makes the ruffle.
The reason this is considered slow is because of the time it takes to knit the 5 rows in St st before you actually bind off.
This is a bind-off you absolutely must block and shape by hand to make it as ruffled as possible. Get it wet, squeeze the water out, lay it out on a towel, and then use your fingers to pull, widen, and shape each ruffle while the yarn is damp.