How to: create a simple ruffle

Used as a decorative edging for garments or accessories, a ruffle can also make a sweet skirt or feature for a toy. This simple shaping is created by decreasing stitches evenly along a row, so you will start with a large number of stitches that is then reduced until the knitting gets to the right size.

A ruffle can be worked as a strip or band to be sewn or grafted to another piece of knitting, or may be part of the main fabric.

In this easy practice example, start with 32 stitches and a few rows of stocking stitch. Start your ruffle with a knit row and knit two stitches together (k2tog) all the way along to the end of the row. At the end of this row you will have halved the number of stitches to 16. To further emphasise the ruffle effect, you can purl two stitches together (p2tog) along the next row, which will again decrease the number of stitches by half. Your pattern will tell you how to cast on and with the right number of stitches; importantly, it will also tell you how many stitches you should have at the end of each decrease row. The instructions will also direct you as to how frequently to work the two stitches together to form the correct size of ruffle – this may be all the way along or at regular intervals, possibly over several rows, depending on the desired effect.