Picot Edging How To (and Comparisons)

I am a tester. I like to know things. And I like to be “right,” do things the “right” way, whenever possible.

So is it really any surprise that I recently crocheted four samples of picot edging, trying to find the “best” one? No, the only surprise is that I was able to stop after four; seems like every book and website out there does it differently! But I think I’ve settled on one I like….

First, let me back up a quick moment. Picots are those little loops or bumps that you sometimes see on the edge of ribbon, clothes, etc. And it’s a common edging on crocheted projects.

The basic technique is the same: space the picots apart with a set number of stitches, often 2 sc, and make each picot with a set number of chains, often 3-5, depending on how big you want the “bump” to be.

But it’s the way the chains connect to the rest of the piece that changes.

Behold, my comparison photos: (this is where some of you start to shake your head, saying, “Karin, they’re all the same!” Undaunted, I forge on.)

Is it just me or are the bottom two less symmetric, with the left side of the picots straight up-and-down and the right side at an angle? Plus the one at the very bottom has little holes near the bottom of each picot. Not what I’m looking for. So clearly, the top two are better.

Well, then let’s look at the back sides… I like that the grey stitches on top of the pink portion look nice and even on the first (and last) one; the middle two have these funny horizontal “dashes” under every picot.

So, clearly, version #1 is the winner in my book. (Version #2 is what I used on the scarf because I hadn’t found version #1 yet.) I’ve written the picot stitch as the photo caption. The pattern for a whole row would be:

Ch 1, sc in first 2 st, * ch 3, sl st in first ch of ch-3 (picot made), then sc in next 3 st *; repeat from * to * along row, ending with sc in last 2 st.

The other trick, no matter which picot stitch you use, is to tug each little picot so it lays nice. Sure, if you made a blanket, that might be 264 little picots to tug, but I didn’t say I like to do things fast. I said I like to do them “right.”

Oh, and the final trick – after you’ve tugged all those tiny bumps – is to keep them laying nicely by blocking your finished piece. Here are some photos of the Hello Kitty scarf: top shows “pre-blocked” and bottom shows “post-blocked” . I should’ve lightened up a wee bit on the iron, but maybe you can see how the stitches in the bottom photo are all much flatter and sort of meshed together. That’ll help keep the picots looking neat, too.

Maybe another time I’ll tell you about baking three different batches of banana bread, all on the same day (I had lots of brown bananas), then asking everyone in the house to blindly taste them and pick their favorite…

But I think I’ll reserve the next post for my favorite new skirt. Or our new pet and his handmade habitat; he’s “singing” to me as I type this…