Charting the chain stitch selvedge

In last month’s project for Three Eyelets Sachet , the lace edging had a chain stitch selvedge along both the straight edge and the shaped edge.

Did you recognize that the Chain Stitch Selvedge is also used at each side edge of this month’s Lace Cable Bookmark project? But this time both edges are straight (rather than one shaped). The Chain Stitch Selvedge makes a tidy perpendicular straight line along each side edge. Do you see how the “chain” of the chain stitch selvedge lies sideways to the adjacent stitches?

Chain Stitch Selvedge

In the chart for the bookmark, since the chart cells are aligned on top of each other, the chain stitch selvedge on each edge is easily identified by how each purlwise-with-yarn-in-front slip stitch at the beginning of the row is then knitted on the return row.

Snippet of Lace Cable Bookmark chart

Above is a snippet of the Lace Cable Bookmark chart just in case you don’t have your pattern handy. I want you to recognize how the chart shows the chain stitch selvedge at the beginning of both the RS row and return WS rows.

The Chain Stitch Selvedge is just one of the many ways we might want to treat the edge stitches of our lace edgings and other lace projects. I will be expanding on this in future segments. Meantime, learning to use and recognize the chain stitch selvedge can be a useful skill to keep ready in your knitting bag of techniques.