It's never too early for Blackberries (well, in stitch form at least!)

Blackberry Stitch is just one of those knit stitches that is ridiculously easy to master, yet gives really nice textured results you don't always get with standard knit / purl stitches. 

Known as Trinity stitch, raspberry stitch and cluster stitch, the more common name is Blackberry Stitch and it was one of the first 'knit several stitches together' stitches that I learned, and it's taken me a while to actually get into knitting it in decent rows (but as you can see from the image on the left I've still got a long way to go before it's neat and tidy, not helped by this sample being knitted with the WORLD'S WORST YARN (Stylecraft Double Knit is pretty awful stuff, not a patch on their chunkier yarns). 

Blackberry Stitch is great for a wide variety of uses, from giving scaly skin for your knit toys (great for crocodiles and dragons!) or crafting a really nice textured blanket or shawl. 

So enough waffle, how do you knit this stitch? 

I'd recommend using an even number of stitches with a couple of edge stitches to give your work proper 'framing' so an ideal number is 1 edge stitch, multiples of 6 stitches, then another edge stitch (cast on 24 using your favourite cast on method and you're in a good place with getting the pattern to form nicely). 

Row 1: Purl all stitches (easy so far, right?)

Row 2: Purl 1 edge stitch, *Purl 3 together, Make 3 stitches in one* (ie knit, purl, knit into the same stitch to 'make up' the three stitches you just lost by knitting 3 together) - repeat the *starred* section until the last stitch then purl 1.

Row 3: Purl all stitches again (these are what I refer to as my 'breather' rows, a nice easy place to leave off in the middle of knitting those alternate Blackberry stitch rows). 

Row 4: Purl 1 edge stitch, *Make 3 stitches in one as described above, Purl 3 together*, repeat the *starred* section until the last stitch then purl 1. 

These four rows form the pattern. It's vitally important to remember which of the blackberry rows you are on at each point (so if you're like me, and get distracted from your knitting a LOT, it's worth noting down what your next row will be somewhere if you're working on a large pattern that requires a lot of this stitch). 

To show you what a neat version of the stitch looks like, the more you practice, the closer you'll get to something lovely like this: 

It's a great decorative stitch, nice and easy to knit and really looks great once you get going and complete a bunch of rows.