In the dark days prior to learning about the über-ingenious German Short Rows (see what I just did there??), I used to wrap and turn with the best of them.  Usually my short rows looked OK… more or less… but I hated the bulk I would invariably get when picking up all those wrapped stitches.

Well, then I learned German Short Rows, and I’ll never, ever, ever, ever, EVER go back to wrapping (or pinning, for that matter) – I mean  NOT EVER.  I believe the method has a few other names, including “Double Stitch Short Rows”, but there isn’t really that much info out there on them that I came across.

Of course, for all I know they could be known as “Timbuctoo Short Rows” and there could be a gazillion You Tube tutorials, and I just wasn’t searching under the correct name.  But to me they will always be German Short Rows – the name just conjures up a precision, ingenuity and elegant simplicity that is certainly evident in this technique.  If so, one more tutorial isn’t going to end the world.

In any event, there wasn’t a lot on the technique, and there especially wasn’t a lot on doing a double set of these short rows to make a short row heel (my favourite type of heel to make when the rare urge hits me to make socks), as opposed to single sets to make darts or shape shoulders.

Anyway, as I have a new design using this technique, I thought it best to have instructions on site, as it were – so the tutorial on this technique is now up, under the Tutorials tab.

Here’s a wee sneak peak of an eye-catching bag, appropriately called the Over The Rainbow Bag – watch out for the pattern release over the next week or so.