I like to look for ways to add embroidery to my knitting.  I’ve done a few things, but I’ve not been really happy with the techniques.  The main thing I’d tried was basting a paper pattern to the knitting, embroidering the pattern over the paper, and then I tore the paper away. It was kinda neat, but it didn’t much feel like embroidery to me.

So I subscribe to the Knitting Daily emails, and the other day I received an email about embroidery.  They provided a video to explain an Estonian embroidery technique that I had not heard of.  It is called Roositud.  I have no idea how to say it out loud.  In my head, I call it many different things with the result being that I can never remember the actual word.  Maybe I will remember better now that I have written about it.

There is a great video on the Knitting Daily website which very clearly explains the technique:  Roositud.  It was very easy to follow.  The result looks like this:

You use a double strand of yarn for the embroidery.  I made mine about 12 inches long.  When  you get to the stitch you want to embroider, you lay the yarn down with a tail in the back and then the longer part hanging in the front.  Knit a stitch or two or three (whatever the pattern calls for in the embroidery), with the regular color you are using – so that would be brown above – and then pull the colored yarn to the back.  It will lay across the front of the stitch(es).

When you come back on the second row, it’s a little different because your yarn is on the left.  They explain how to take care of this really well on the video.  But it looks kinda like this:

You pull the colored yarn forward and make what they called a “hanging flap”.  Then you knit the stitch or two and just pull that yarn to the back.  The part that covers the front stitch stays in the front.  That doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense.  The video explains it better.

I really enjoyed this technique, and I can’t wait to try it again.  I am trying to figure out kind of my own design of the front of a fingerless mitt or mitten, and I’d like to include a row of lateral braid across the bottom.

Cool Estonian technique!

It’s also Buster’s first birthday today.  Davey is really excited and has been insistent that we have a “surprise” party for him.  So that will be later today.