Short Rows Tutorial Part 1: What are short rows?

I've decided that this week I'm going to be focusing on short rows. Every day I'm going to post about this wonderful technique. I'll start today by explaining what short rows are and how they work. Later this week I'll continue with posts about how to do different short row techniques including: the wrap and turn short row, the yarn over short row, the make one short row, and the Japanese short row. Then next week I plan on talking about different ways to use short rows. I hope you'll all find this information helpful and interesting.

What are short rows?

Short rows are incomplete rows of knitting, where instead of working every row on the needle you knit back and forth on just some of the stitches.  In the picture you can see below that I knit a swatch, and the pink yarn is where I worked the short rows. The arrows show how I first worked to before the last 3 stitches, then turned the work and purled back to before the last three stitches. I continued to do this two more times, and then I knit across all of the stitches again.

In the picture below you can see that at each turning point the number of pink rows increases by two stitches.

Tomorrow I'll be posting step-by-step instruction on the wrap and turn short row technique. 

Want more short rows? 

Short Rows Tutorial Part 2: Wrap and Turn

Short Rows Tutorial Part 3: Yarn Over Short Rows

Short Rows Tutorial Part 4: Make One Short Rows

Short Rows Tutorial Part 5: Japanese Short Rows

Short Rows Tutorial Part 6: How to use short rows to make your sweaters fit