Wow It Has Been A Week

Today is the Saturday following my last post. I have been so busy that I haven't taken the time to journal. But I have a moment right now so I will share some thoughts.

I received an email from a yarn company [Juniper Moon Farm www.fiberfarm.com] that is orchestrating a design contest. The rules require that their yarn be used (of course), which there are two selections - Chadwick and Willa. The winner wins some free yarn but the most important part to me is that the winner gets a lot of recognition. The yarn must be used in an original pattern and submitted by the end of this month. I decided that I would like to try my hand at this, so I bought the Chadwick yarn from a local shop near me [Knit Happens www.knithappensaz.com]. I played with several ideas for a while but kept coming back to the one I set aside last week - the one that is cabled on one side and  ribbed on the other side. I decided to see what I could do with it. I had written down the directions as I had knit the design, but now I captured the design on graph paper.

Not a real clear photo, but this is my original swatch where this side has cables and the other side is ribbing only.

I then graphed my calculations for the cast on stitches needed to make a scarf the length I could get from one or two skeins of the yarn. That was the other requirement of the contest. Only two skeins, max, could be used for the original designed pattern. Then I had to graph the ribbing for the rows that built the cables. There needed to be two rows of ribbing following each of the two rows of cabling. This allowed each cable to have a nice rounded look to it. Because the first cable row started before the second one, there were actually three ribbing rows between each cable pattern stitch. This happily carried over to the second cable row, too.

I spent several days working the pattern design on graph paper so that the cables were not parallel to each other even though they were aligned together. What that means is that one cable starts in one row a little before the two cables on either side of it. So there is alternating start points for each row of cabling. Sorta looks like this...

I        I            I            I            I
    I           I            I            I

Cables and Ribs on both sides, the graphing notes, and the written directions.
 In this pattern  the cables all start on the same row. They do not alternate.

I swatched the pattern first with alternating ribs and cables on both sides. I knit the first four rows after casting on 37 stitches. The graph was pretty accurate but I was glad I had used a pencil. I did find several changes were necessary as I knit what I had graphed. I fine-tuned my cable pattern and was pleased with the results initially. But after the swatch was a good bit larger, I evaluated the pattern a little more closely and realized that the garter edging wouldn't work at all. I liked it for the ends of a scarf, but ribbing pulls tighter than garter stitch and so the sides were not straight as I would like. So I garter stitched four more rows and bound off the swatch. It is now part of my files, set aside to be used another time for another possible project. If used for a scarf, I will begin and end the edging with ribbing.

Cables on one side and ribbing on the other side. There are five rows of ribbing before the first cable row.

                                             
Also, since I didn't really feel that the cables were clearly seen on the other swatch as I wanted; I swatched another sample with the cables on one side and the ribs on the other, as I had done before. This time I re-calculated the graph using a starting rib instead of the garter stitch. I knit a k1, p1 rib for five rows before starting the cable pattern. The results were wonderful. I liked it well enough I decided my project would be to make a scarf (6" X 48"). But as I worked with the swatch, I knew that I wanted something that would display the two patterns at the same time. I didn't really want to scarf to be different on each side. So when I joined my friends for our knitting session at the yarn shop I asked for some ideas for my kind of pattern. It was suggested that I knit a Mobius, which when worn shows the pattern from the front and the back because of the "infinite" way the design is knit. The piece is twisted in such a way that there appears to be no beginning or ending to the pattern but a continuous line. In my  mind, I saw plainly that the pattern I had designed would work well with the Mobius, so I decided to make that.

The next day, I went to another yarn shop [Tempe Yarn & Fiber www.tempeyarn.com] and started the casting on for the Mobius. I had to recalculate my cast on stitches to accommodate the length of the scarf rather than the width. My first and second swatches were for a scarf measuring only 6" wide. But the Mobius deals with the length, which I wanted to be about 48-56" long. So instead of casting on the 37-39 stitches of the other swatches, the Mobius was 312 stitches. That is it was until I discovered that the continuous circle would require an additional cable pattern that was up and not down. The flat scarf has a pattern that started and ended with a down cable so it would be balanced on both edges of the length of the scarf. But since the Mobius is a continuous twisting circle, the ends would meet and the pattern run right into itself. Well I didn't want two cables that matched next to each other, so I had to configure another up cable to rest between the two down cables, which then balanced the whole thing. The pattern is an 8-stitch repeat, so I cast on 320 stitches, which worked out perfectly, but seemed to take forever to get from the first stitch to the last. Whew!!!

I had never knit a Mobius before - only crocheted this pattern using a foundation chain. I thought all I needed to do was twist the initial first row once it was finished joining the two ends together. But I didn't know that it was the cast on row that is twisted. So after using a knit cast-on for 320 stitches and then ribbing those same stitches through the back loops, I get to the ends for twisting and discover that the ribs won't match because they are not on the same level any longer. Think about it. The untwisted ribs are face up. The twisted end is now face down. There is no way to join them smoothly and continue in the pattern. Whoa...what to do now? I remembered that Cat Bordhi teaches a Mobius cast on on one of her You-Tube videos. So I pulled out all 640 stitches and went home.

I watched the video and learned the technique for a Mobius cast on. It is somewhat like a Provisional cast on and I completed all 320 stitches on my circular needles - size 47". Good thing, too, because all the needle cable was used. Now I learned another fact. The Mobius is NOT what I expected when I envisioned my pattern in a "twisted" scarf. Yes the Mobius is twisted but the pattern is worked from the center of the scarf out, not from one edge to the other. As the pattern is knitted in what appears to be a normal row of stitches, it goes around one way and then back up the other, thus a center line. A flat scarf starts on one end and builds up. I also discovered that while I had the length I desired with the flat scarf, the Mobius (being a circle) is only half that length. Duh! So my flat scarf would hang longer. The Mobius would be tighter. But rather than start over AGAIN, I chose to keep the measurements because a rib stitch will stretch and then spring back into shape. That means it will pull over the head easily and then fit snug around the neck. [At least that is the plan.]

Also by now, I was determined to see if my pattern would look good twisted. What my pattern did was move around the circle from the middle outward. So looking at the scarf (or now cowl) laid flat against the table, there are cables at the top from the middle and ribbing at the bottom from that same middle. But turn that piece over and the pattern reverses - the cables are at the bottom from the middle with the ribbing at the top. Really weird!!! I honestly don't think I could have planned that design. This just sorta happened by accident with me just trying to see what would happen if I did this or that. I like it, though.

Mobius
See the twist in the pattern as it knits around the needles? See the middle starting line and how the pattern knits away  from it? On the other side, the rib is behind the cable and the cable behind the rib; but the pattern looks the same with a cable on one side of the middle and the rib on the other side. Weird, huh?

I think I am going to finish the Cowl - yes I believe that is what this is - and submit it for the contest. I may, if I have enough time, knit a "twisted" scarf, which will show the cables on one side and the ribbing on the other, (at least I think that is what will happen) much more like the flat scarf I first started and will finish later. I am considering submitting it, too.

Each pattern is to be submitted on Ravelry and the public gets to vote on which submitted projects they like best. Me? I just think this will be fun and has already proven to be a good teaching/learning experience for me. Funny! What started out with me designing one pattern has evolved with me putting my design into three different applications. Kinda neat!!