Mad for Plaid: Duplicate Stitch

#6 (no designer credit)
Vogue Knitting Winter Special 1989-90

Duplicate stitch, also historically know as Swiss darning, is another means to create plaid patterning on the surface of a finished piece of knitting.  Yarn is threaded onto a tapestry needle, and sewn onto the surface to duplicate the shape of a knit stitch.  The most popular YouTube video on the process is here, but there are plenty of others form which to choose.  

#13 (no designer credit)
Vogue Knitting Winter Special 1989-90

The only examples of this technique being used to create a plaid fabric were used in combination with another technique.  As you might imagine, duplicate stitch allover patterning would be tedious and time-consuming, so it makes sense to use it sparingly.  In these examples is it primarily used to create the vertical lines.  Duplicate stitch does work well in this application because it is easy to skip over stitches which simulates the weaving on a plaid fabric.  

(My apologies for the quality of these photos, but I had to reach deep into the archives for documentation of the technique.  Most of these appear to be scans of pattern pages.  I suppose the age of these designs speaks to the current lack of interest in the technique.)

Striven by Jennie Atkinson
Rowan #42, August 2007

The first two examples, modeled by guys, are a combination of stranded knitting and duplicate stitch.  The third pattern, a Rowan design, is slip stitch and duplicate stitch.  

I have personally only used duplicate stitch to fix mistakes (stitch over the wrong color in a stranded knitting design) or to monogram a sweater (a long-ago Harry Potter sweater for my book-loving daughter).  

Next up in our series:  knit-weave.