Why is it that the most popular increase causes many of us so much confusion? I don’t know about you, but it took me YEARS to find a way to remember how to make M1R and M1L without mixing them up.
So when Carol sent me an email asking to make a tutorial about this way to increase stitches, I related to this issue right away.
If you ever followed a knitting pattern, chances are you’ve seen the “M1” abbreviation. Why do designers like this type of increase so much? Well, because it is relatively easy to do and because it creates a new stitch in a subtle almost invisible manner, without any unwanted holes.
The confusion comes when you have to “make 1 left” (M1L) and “make 1 right” (M1R).
The difference between these variations of the same increase is that M1L makes the little bar under the new stitch slant to the left, and the new stitches are added at the left side of the work. You can see it in the photo below (I marked the left-slanting bars with the navy blue colour).
M1R, on the other hand, makes that little bar slant to the right and the new stitches are formed at the right side of the work, as shown in this photo.
Let’s see how we should make these increases.
In majority cases, you will be doing the “make one” increase on the knit side of your work, but sometimes the pattern will instruct you to make a stitch on the purl side. The abbreviations will be M1PL (make 1 purl left) and M1PR (make 1 purl right).
In that case, the logic behind this increase remains the same, and all tips I explained above are true, but you will purl the new stitch instead of knitting it.
Now you are ready for any kind of “make one” increases 🙂
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