As I mentioned in my last post, I am working on a design inspired by Rhodocrosite. The idea of a lace plaid design was intriguing. I sketched out this stole.
The fully colored squares are the solid parts, the horizontally colored in parts are semi-solid and the vertically colored in parts are the least solid and the most lacy. The next step was to work out the details of each square. The solid ones were easy. They are going to be stockinette.
I pulled the yarn out and started swatching. My first instinct was to use purse st for the really lacy parts. Purse st is simply yo, p2tog in every row.
You can see the purse st on the bottom right hand side of the swatch. I like the texture but it is biasing quite a bit. This swatch has been washed and is blocked so it is relatively straight. but you can still see how the bottom right hand side corner is curling. So I changed from purse st to its complement, yo, k2tog in every row. The top right of the swatch represents this. And it didn't bias. So that is what the lacy squares are going to be.
At the same time, I was planning the semi-solid squares. I started off by doing a yarnover row every other RS row. This is the bottom left of the swatch. The basic pattern is 3 knit rows and 1 purl row. Every other knit row is replaced by a yo, k2tog row. But I found that this did not provide enough contrast with the lacy squares, as you can see on the bottom left. Yes, it is more solid, but not solid enough.
Therefore, I decided to just do the yo, k2tog row once in every 8 rows instead of once every 4 rows. That is the top left of the swatch and this provided enough contrast for me. My stitch patterns were now complete.
The last part of the design is determining how many sts and rows formed each square. I had planned a 24 st square in the swatch and that gives me a 7" square if I did 32 rows. Perfect. 7" times 3 squares is 21" which is a good width for the stole. I am still debating whether the length should be 11 squares wide or 9 squares wide. I need an odd number to make it symmetrical at both ends. 11 squares gives me a length of 77" which seems a bit much for a stole. 9 squares gives me 63" so I may go with the 9 squares.
That tells me I need to CO 24 x 9 sts = 216 sts.
My work here is done. Now all I have to do is knit the stole. :-)
I pulled the yarn out and started swatching. My first instinct was to use purse st for the really lacy parts. Purse st is simply yo, p2tog in every row.
At the same time, I was planning the semi-solid squares. I started off by doing a yarnover row every other RS row. This is the bottom left of the swatch. The basic pattern is 3 knit rows and 1 purl row. Every other knit row is replaced by a yo, k2tog row. But I found that this did not provide enough contrast with the lacy squares, as you can see on the bottom left. Yes, it is more solid, but not solid enough.
Therefore, I decided to just do the yo, k2tog row once in every 8 rows instead of once every 4 rows. That is the top left of the swatch and this provided enough contrast for me. My stitch patterns were now complete.
The last part of the design is determining how many sts and rows formed each square. I had planned a 24 st square in the swatch and that gives me a 7" square if I did 32 rows. Perfect. 7" times 3 squares is 21" which is a good width for the stole. I am still debating whether the length should be 11 squares wide or 9 squares wide. I need an odd number to make it symmetrical at both ends. 11 squares gives me a length of 77" which seems a bit much for a stole. 9 squares gives me 63" so I may go with the 9 squares.
That tells me I need to CO 24 x 9 sts = 216 sts.
My work here is done. Now all I have to do is knit the stole. :-)
1 comment:
I love the swatch! It is so beautiful, and the color is great too. Looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!
Post a Comment