Knititude

Ropes Beach Infinity Scarf or Cowl and Almy Cabled Mittens

These two patterns are not really related, except that I originally created these designs for a yarn company, Our Back 40, to showcase their gorgeous Ne Plus Ultra Worsted 100% alpaca yarn. Our Back 40 called these patterns the Cabled City Mittens, Cabled Winter Headband and Cabled Infinity Scarf (I combined the instructions for the latter two into one pattern). They only offered the patterns as part of a kit, which included the pattern plus their yarn, and these kits were rather expensive. Understandably so-- their yarn is a real indulgence! But I'm happy that they generously allowed me to keep the rights to sell the patterns myself after a year, which gives knitters a chance to buy the pattern at a much lower price, and to choose their own yarn. They also allowed me to use their photos (first 3 photos, courtesy of our Back 40). 

 

I did alter the designs slightly in the process of self-publishing them. The Ropes Beach Infinity Scarf or Cowl stitch pattern is a mirror image of the stitch pattern used in the Cabled Winter Headband/Infinity Scarf. This is because in the original design, the cable cross (one stitch over five) required putting five stitches on a cable needle and holding them behind the work; in the new design, the cable cross requires that one stitch be held in front of the work. This can be done quite easily without a cable needle, which makes the knitting go much faster. The new patterns still call for the ends of the cowl or scarf to be grafted using the duplicate stitch method; click here for a blog post describing this technique, as well as the unusual stitch pattern I used. 

I chose to use Lobster Pot Yarns Hand-dyed Cashmere for the cowl. This is definitely still an indulgence (100% aran weight cashmere!), but it is wonderful to work with and to wear-- and of course any number of yarns could be substituted.

The cable chart for the Almy Cabled Mittens pattern is eaxctly the same as the original, but the rest of the mittens are worked in stockinette stitch instead of reverse stockinette. I made this change because it is virtually impossible to avoid "ladders" of loose stitches when working reverse stockinette in the round on double-pointed needles (dpn); this is because the yarn is held on the outside of the triangle formed by the needles, and thus has to travel farther every time it crosses from one needle to the next. (For stockinette stitch, the yarn is held inside the triangle, so if it is pulled tight when crossing from one needle to the next, "ladders" can be avoided.) And yes, maybe working on two circular needles or using the magic loop technique could prevent this problem-- but I prefer dpn. 

For the mittens I used Spirit Trail Fiberworks Birte, a DK-weight merino wool/cashmere/silk blend. Using DK-weight yarn creates a slightly smaller mitten, which should fit ladies' hand sizes small to medium; if using a worsted weight yarn (as called for in the original pattern), the mittens should fit a ladies' medium tio large hand, or a men's small to medium hand.

The only other reason that these patterns are linked together is that I decided to name them after local Cotuit landmarks: the Almy Cedar Swamp (above) is a rare Atlantic white cedar swamp near our home. Ropes Beach is the home of the Cotuit Mosquito Yacht Club, the oldest junior yacht club in the country; the photo below shows the beach on the day of the Parent-Child Opti races.

New patterns and an exciting new* technique!

*New to me, anyway!

I recently designed several patterns for a new yarn company called Our Back 40. They sell gorgeous 100% alpaca yarn sourced from American farms and produced in mills in the U.S. This yarn is really a luxury to work with and to wear, and it's perfect for accessories such as the Cabled Winter Headband (2nd photo), Cabled Infinity Scarf (3rd photo), and the Cabled City Mittens (shown above). Unfortunately the patterns are available only as part of a kit (yarn + pattern) at the moment-- although the kits are a lovely indulgence, should you be inclined to treat yourself (or someone else)! 

And during the process of developing the headband and scarf patterns (the scarf is just a longer version of the headband), I discovered the "duplicate stitch" or "contrasting color" method of grafting, which I am super excited about! As you can see in the above photo (first 3 photos copyright Our Back 40), the headband has an allover cabled stitch pattern. What might be less obvious is that the stitch pattern is actually worked not quite sideways, but on a diagonal, with the band shaped by increases along one edge and decreases along the other, so that the finished band before seaming is actually a trapezoid. The problem with this was that the seam would not be a short vertical one at the back of the band, but a longer diagonal one that would be harder to hide or ignore.

And I have never liked grafting and never been good at it; I'm not a sock knitter, and so any grafting I've done has usually involved either fixing a nasty mistake or seamless sweater underarms, along with unsightly beginnings and endings, excessive amounts of time, and muttered chanting. And I had heard that grafting of ribbing was especially daunting, and maybe even impossible to do perfectly (and the cable pattern is based on a 2X2 rib).

A recent post by Techknitter about the contrast color/duplicate stitch method of grafting pointed me in the right direction. This method immediately made sense to me, because you use a row of stitches formed by contrasting waste yarn as a guide for your grafting yarn. There are no knitting needles in the way, and no trying to remember or figure out how each stitch should relate to the loops of yarn around it, and once you are done, you simply remove the waste yarn. When I decided to try this technique, I also added a 2nd color of waste yarn, so that the line of stitches you are trying to follow with your tapestry needle stands out very clearly. To summarize the set-up briefly, you cast on using one color of waste yarn, work a row or two (these rows just hold your contrasting yarn loops in the proper position), switch to your contrasting waste yarn, work for one row in pattern, then switch to your main yarn. You then work along (on your cowl or whatever) to the end of your piece, leave a long tail for grafting, join contrast waste yarn again (on the SAME pattern row as the first row of waste yarn, if you are doing any kind of stitch pattern), work one row, then switch to your other waste yarn, work a row or two, and bind off. You then graft away (see below for more on that).

After carefully perusing Techknitter's posts on grafting, I realized that even though she (and others) stated that it was not possible to graft ribbing without a half-stitch offset (without heroic measures and/or sacrifice of stretchiness, anyway), this was only because she (and others) were talking about end-to-end grafting, where the two pieces of knitting are going in opposite directions-- the kind of grafting you do for a sock toe. If you are talking about grafting the ends of a continuous loop, where the knitting is going the same direction on both ends, you can theoretically graft ANY stitch pattern perfectly. And while for ribbing or lace, this would be a painful and frustrating (and MENSA-worthy) activity using the traditional Kitchener stitch, with the duplicate stitch method, it becomes... well, maybe not easy, but doable. (You don't see a seam on the headband, do you? It's not just out of sight in the photo; there isn't one!)

So at this point I've tried it on the above cabled stitch pattern; 2X2 rib; and "true" lace (lace stitches every row, that is). And WOW! I'm even enjoying it! So I've made my first ever technique videos (written descriptions and still photos just didn't seem sufficient) and posted them to YouTube. Note that the videos form a 3-part series, and the first one is at the bottom of the page. I suppose there's a way to embed them here but I haven't figured out how.

I'd like to post better photos soon, but here are a couple of photos of that lace pattern ("Milanese Lace") I was talking about: the first halfway done, and the second with graft almost finished.