"Don't purl between 2 needles" when knitting on dpns...why not?

[WildMountainHoney]

I'm making my first sock (woohoo!) the pattern is Freya and I'm also following Silvers tut. The pattern itself only talks about 2 needles, maybe it was written for circs? In any case, I'm currently using 5 dpns (actually, I'm also using the 6th one instead of a cable needle, but anyway) so I have 60 stitches divided evenly between 4 needles, 15 sts on each needle. The pattern starts with a purl, so in 2 different joins, I'm purling at the end, and the beginning of the join. However nowhere am I doing a knit and a purl across the join. So, am I going to end up with ladders later, even if I don't see them now? What exactly about purling across a join can go wrong? I'm almost done with the leg ( ) but of course I only think of asking this now.

Here is a pic, with my hand inside stretching it quite a bit. Without knowing, can you tell which purls were at the join, and which were not? Is there something I need to know? TIA!

[Kime]

In my experience if you pull a little tighter at the join then it doesn't matter. Your sock looks fine to me.

[WildMountainHoney]

Cool, good to know. I am pulling until the working needle actually touches the last needle, and I think that's working.

In fact, the only place *I* see loose stitches, is the first knit stitches after the purls, but I'm hoping that is only because I was stretching it.......it'll all even out in the wash, right?

[Jan in CA]

It looks fine to me!

I've never seen that written, but sometimes going from a knit to a purl is looser and going across a join would make it more so. You seem to have mastered it fine though.

[brittyknits]

I've never heard that about not purling between needles! But I can imagine that it's about having a little bit of looseness come up, which is easily resolved by Kime's suggestion about just pulling a little tighter between needles. And by the way, actually, it's a good idea to do that even if you are doing a knit stitch between needles-- again, to prevent any looseness. And your sock looks great!

[krazy4kats]

The pattern writer does mention using 2 circs at the beginning of the pattern, although obviously one could use DPNs as you did or ML.

And, echoing the previous posters, you can just give a little extra tug on that first st to tighten it up - I usually tug the second one, too. If you do find that you're forming ladders at some point, you can always rearrange your st so you have 2 knits together, although as Jan says the looseness for most is going between a knit and a purl.