Free knitted heart template – duplicate stitch

Whether it’s to quickly customise some knitting in time for Valentine’s day, or simply because you love a good heart design, we’ve got just the tutorial for you! We’ll show you how to customise a heart design onto a piece of knitting using the duplicate stitch. And, we’ve got two templates for you, so you can make a small heart or a big heart depending on your garment. Please note, this particular design works on a stocking stitch only and we used our Crazy Sexy Wool!

Duplicate stitch heart step-by-step

1. Secure your yarn on the wrong side of the fabric by sewing a couple of stitches close to where you want the first stitch.

2. Bring the needle through to the right side of the fabric, at the bottom of the first stitch you want to embroider over.

duplicate stitch patterns

3. Tug on the yarn until all of it has been pulled through to the right side.

4. The spot where you’ve pulled the yarn through is at the bottom of the little ‘V’ formed by the stitch in the knitted fabric. Your duplicate stitch will sit on top of this stitch, hiding the yarn under it, and it will look as if it was a knitted stitch. First, form the right-hand ‘leg’ of the stitch by inserting the needle at the top of the stitch, under both ‘legs’ of the stitch above it.

free heart pattern

5. Now pull the yarn through.

red heart patterns

6. Complete the stitch by inserting the needle in the same place where you started off.

duplicate stitch

7. Pull the yarn through to the wrong side of the fabric, and finish off the stitch.

free knitting patterns

Repeat steps 2 to 7 to continue working in duplicate stitch.

Small duplicate stitch heart template

free heart pattern duplicate stitch charts

Big duplicate stitch heart template

duplicate stitch knitted heart template

Top duplicate stitching tips:

To make the duplicate stitches sit evenly over the top of your knitted stitches, work the embroidery either up in columns or sideways in rows. Duplicate stitching doesn’t look as neat if you work the stitches downwards, always go up!

When cutting your yarn ready to embroider, don’t cut your yarn too long. Cut lengths of approximately 80cm, that way your yarn won’t get too fluffy as you’re pulling it through the fabric.

You will notice that our chart uses some stitches which only cover half of the knitted stitch. To do this, work steps 2 and 3 as normal, then when you come to work step 4, rather than inserting your sewing needle underneath both ‘legs’ of the stitch above, take your needle through to the back of the fabric to the right hand side of the right ‘leg’. Ta – dah, you have made a half stitch!

We chose to make the big heart – and here’s one we made earlier!

Knitted duplicate stitch - heart

As modelled by Monty The Penguin:

m

2 Comments

  1. The stitch is so great, thank you for sharing such techniques. Dear Monty, thank you as well for presenting this awesome sweater!

Submit a comment