A picot edge is created when the turning row for the hem has eyelets worked in it. When the hem is turned, the stitches between the eyelets magically turn into little points or "picots", to use the French term.
This finish can be accomplished by transferring every other stitch on the turning row to the adjacent needle manually. If you have a lace carriage, you can pull forward and select every other needle, then transfer all stitches to the next needle using one pass of the lace carriage.
My instructions said to set the tension DOWN one full number for the turning edge. My student was surprised, because on a hung hem, normally you turn the tension UP one full number to allow the edge to turn.
My reason for tightening the tension is that the eyelets or holes formed by the picots allow the necessary slack for turning. This replaces the looser tension of the turning row on a plain hem. By tightening the tension, you get sharper picots. To demonstrate this principle, I made some swatches on the standard gauge machine.
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| Unblocked |
The photo above shows unblocked examples. The one on the left is made with the tension turned up one notch to a higher tension. The middle sample shows a picot edge using main garment tension. The final sample, on the right, shows a "graded" tension. The main tension was 5. Five rows of the hem were knitted and tension reduced to 4. Five more rows were knitted and tension reduced to 3. Five rows were knitted, the picots were formed, five rows were knitted at T3, then the tension was graded back up one full number at a time. The illustration below shows the same swatches after a light steam blocking and with the yarn ends woven in.
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| Steam Blocked |
The turning row for the hem is much softer and rounded when stitch size is increased for the turning row. The graded tension provides much better stitch definition, and it also has the benefit of reducing any flare in the hem over the width of the complete garment.
I notice that on the first sample the hemline is not as defined on the other two. The reason is that I accidentally made a row of picots too soon. When hanging the hem, I picked up only the stich on the top of the eyelet on the back side (first row of the hem) and did not try to pick up every stitch. On the other two samples, I picked up every stitch, and did not increase the tension on the hanging row. On a real garment, I would take care to soften the hemline as in the first sample by hanging only every other stitch and by increasing the tension slightly on the row knitting the two stitches off the needles.
The difference between the three samples is subtle to the eye. You may focus on the shadow below the samples to be better able to differentiate the sharpness of the picot. Better yet, sit down at your machine and make some samples to prove it to yourself.
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