Yarn & needles provided by Knit Picks. Post contains affiliate links.
I’ve probably said this about one too many stitches, but the Little Butterfly Stitch (sometimes also called a Bowknot Stitch) is one of my favorites of all time. Just look at how cute it is, especially in this nice pastel blue! The name Little Butterfly is perfect for a stitch that allows knitters to pepper an otherwise-plain bed of stockinette stitch with little bows or insect friends. I love the idea of this stitch as a standalone design element just as much as I love seeing it checkerboarded here across my sample swatch.
Little Butterfly / Bowknot Stitch
Here’s the video tutorial, with the written stitch pattern a little further down.
There’s a similar stitch called Butterfly Stitch that features more rows of slipped stitches and a 20 row repeat (vs. the Little Butterfly’s 12). Both Butterfly and Little Butterfly Stitch patterns may be found on page 101 of Barbara Walker’s first Treasury of Knitting Patterns if you’d like to compare the differences up close.
P.S. I love sharing stitch tutorials as a go-to, but if there are videos you’d like to see on the channel, suggestions are welcome in the comments. 🧶
Little Butterfly STITCH / Bowknot Stitch PATTERN
Knitting skill level: Easy to Intermediate
CO a mult of 10 sts + 7.
row 1, 3 & 5. (RS) k1, *k5, sl5 wyif; rep from *, end k6.
rows 2 & 4. (WS) p all sts.
row 6. p8, *insert working needle from below under the 3 loose strands on RS of work; yarn over and draw up a loop; p1, pass drawn up loop over purled st, p9. Rep from *, end p8.
rows 7, 9, & 11. k1, *sl5 wyif; k5; rep from *, end sl5 wyif, k1.
rows 8 & 10. p all sts.
row 12. p3, *insert working needle from below under the 3 loose strands on RS of work; yarn over and draw up a loop; p1, pass drawn up loop over purled st, p9. Rep from *, end p3.
Rep rows 1-12.
Please note that stitches are presented using the Craft Yarn Council’s standards and abbreviations: http://bit.ly/cyc-standards.
Yarn & needles provided by Knit Picks. Post contains affiliate links.
Gat tutorial. I love this butterfly stitch. Thank you very much for the video. It always helps to see how a pattern is knitted.
Is there a way to do this in the round?
Yes, this one is pretty easy to do in the round as well as flat. Since the WS rows (even rows in this case) are p sts, they can be worked as plain rounds of knitting. The hard part will be working the butterflies in a staggered pattern over the beginning of a new round if you want them to be staggered as in this flat example.