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Sunday, August 20, 2023

Knitting -- leftovers, a new stitch, and a plan

So I had leftover cotton yarn in fingering weight and there was a new stitch I wanted to try, plus I wanted to invent a frame for houseware projects.

So the stitch was the Eye of Partridge stitch, which is the traditional name for Johnnie Vasquez' "double knit". EoP was used on Arne and Carlos' video showing how to make a reinforced toe and heel to go with Dovrekofta socks, which are a lot like Fair Isle knitting.

Suzanne Bryan's video shows how to work EoP in one and two colors on the flat and I got two ideas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZAF6-7Qc3M

What if I use it with the fine cotton to make washcloths for the bathroom? It would provide a little texture to exfoliate my face, the same as the texture on my Dishie washcloths helps get food off plates.

I have that nice selvage pattern for the sides of the washcloth, but what do I do about the bottom and top? Can I do something that looks like the selvage? So I charted and experimented and here is the result. This makes a 14 x 14 washcloth from 3 25-gram packets of Cotona fingering.

1. do a long-tail cast-on for 100 stitches besides the initial slip knot.

2. K2, do seed stitch across, K2

3. P2, do seed stitch across, making sure to purl into what look like knit stitches and vice versa, P2

4. K3/P2, K across, P2/K3

5. P2/K1/P2, seed stitch across, P2/K1/P2

6. K3/P2, seed stitch across making sure to purl into what look like knit stitches and vice versa, K3/P2

You will do rows 2-6 at the top, binding off in the last row of seed stitch.

turn, do the purl side selvage, PURL across, and do the selvage on the other side.

EoP rows.

a. K3/P2, K1, slip 1 purlwise, repeat these two across, P2/K3 selvage. RIGHT SIDE

b. P2/K1/P2, purl across, P2/K1/P2. WRONG SIDE

c. selvage, slip 1 purlwise, K1, repeat across, selvage

d. selvage, purl across, selvage

It is VERY easy to get out of whack and then you ruin the EoP patters. Here's how you find out what to do first on a right side row. 

i.  Do your selvage.

ii. undo the first stitch, which you purled on the last row. 

iii. if the stitch below that is knitted, put the purl stitch back and slip that first stitch. If there's a floater below it, put the purl stitch back and knit that first stitch.

iv. the other way is when you purl the last 4-5 stitches, remember, where you slipped a stitch there is a floating thread in that place. You will knit that stitch on the next round, so count as you go Knit-Slip-Knit-Slip and then remember whichever you end up with before you do the selvage, because that's what you do after you turn the selvage. But if you forget, get interrupted, whatever, do steps i-iii as a backup.

Suzanne's video also shows how to work EoP in two colors, which could be kind of pretty.

The other idea from Suzanne's video is that if you use bulky yarn in EoP, you would end up with a waffle blanket like that thermal fabric. So there's another houseware. 

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