{"id":2873,"date":"2017-05-05T04:47:18","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T04:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christineguestdesigns.com\/blog\/?p=2873"},"modified":"2019-09-26T23:50:58","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T23:50:58","slug":"short-row-slides-and-pattern-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christineguestdesigns.com\/blog\/short-row-slides-and-pattern-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Short Row Slides and pattern progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m so excited about Short Row Slides – using internal short rows to increase on one side of a set of stitches, and decrease on the other, so the stitch set slides\u00a0horizontally, but the total number of stitches is conserved. Depending on the stitch set you choose, it can be reversible. \u00a0That’s how I’m making the almost horizontal bits of my Ogee Blankets.\u00a0 I’m checking out books from the library to see if the way I’m using short rows has a term already, so I may be calling it something else soon.<\/p>\n

I made 24 new symbols for them on Stitchmastery, added both their written description and graphs to the key via Inkscape (three times, I keep realizing ways to improve them, or finding mistakes, but never until the whole charts are tidy and proofed.) \u00a0I haven’t figured out how to describe them for intuitive knitters who want an overview, which\u00a0my TE Corrina Ferguson<\/a>\u00a0said I should include. \u00a0Which is weird,<\/em> because I’m<\/em> an intuitive knitter who wants an overview! \u00a0Perhaps if I blog about it, I’ll write my way into some paragraphs I can recycle into pattern notes.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t\u00a0close the tops of my ogee tiles, but brought them down to just one stitch. \u00a0They are\u00a0columns of ribbing that change shape by increases and decreases, but never actually crossed over. They did\u00a0need more definition between them. \u00a0Which is where needing a present and wanting to participate\u00a0to the\u00a0GAL helped me out. \u00a0We got word that Dan’s sister and brother-in-law would be at his parent’s house for Christmas, despite the Army being about to send them to Germany, or possibly Kansas, so we should remember presents for his nieces.<\/p>\n

\"Cobblestone
Cobblestone Intersections Cowl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

See how the slipped selvage stitch on the end of the garter is echoed\u00a0by the border between the garter and the cobblestone section in the Cobblestone Intersections Cowl<\/a>? \u00a0It’s a k1, p1, the tiniest bit of ribbing. \u00a0Both sides look like they have a puffy knit stitch separating them from each section, but the purl ditch fades away into shadow. \u00a0And it’s reversible! \u00a0Things that don’t have mirror symmetry feel edgy and cool to me. \u00a0I was in awe of this pattern. \u00a0Knit it, it’s wonderful.<\/a><\/p>\n

I tried Sarah’s internal tiny rib border in my Ogee swatch and it worked marvelously.<\/p>\n

But the horizontal bits were still hard. \u00a0I was waiting for Matt and K to come out of the dentist’s office, and listening to the country radio station (the dentist’s office is the only place I ever hear country music\u00a0here in New England.) \u00a0I was trying to get my thoughts graphed out on scrap paper, but I felt confused and impatient. \u00a0Almost without my consent, my hands picked up the swatch and started knitting. The muscles knew what to do, even if my brain was still trying to draw out a strategy. \u00a0Work partly forward, increase, turn, work partly backward, decrease, turn, repeat. \u00a0At first I tried yo for\u00a0my increases, but they were too pronounced in this solid swatch. \u00a0My fingers told my brain, “Hang on, we’re not\u00a0done yet! \u00a0Refine it later.” \u00a0They didn’t wrap the turns either, probably because when I used to make saddle shoulders, or add knit on selvages, I would k2tog, turn and slip (from Barbary G Walker or Knitting in the Old Way? \u00a0Maybe Mary Thomas?) Now I was working k1, turn, slwyif. \u00a0It didn’t gap, and I’d been worrying that wrapped stitches would look wonky since both sides would show. \u00a0I finally took over from my\u00a0fingers, and inspected the work. \u00a0The bit of knitting looked bumpy (“Just block it,” retorted the fingers) but fairly horizontal, and best of all, reversible.<\/p>\n

The kids came out from the dentist at that point, and I had to wait to document what I’d done. \u00a0But we had a nice walk home by way of the park and library.<\/p>\n

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And then the swatches sat in my bag. \u00a0Which sounds like I was giving up or something, but sometimes swatches have to simmer. \u00a0If they are documented in my sketchbook and Stitchmastery files, they aren’t lost to mankind.\u00a0 I don’t have to panic if I can’t think of everything at the same time; besides, I can’t think of everything at the same time even if I am panicking.<\/p>\n

The double increase investigation helped me figure out how I wanted to proceed (yep, the blog series <\/a>started because I<\/em> was confused.) \u00a0It turned out that I\u00a0wanted to add knits and purls so that the\u00a0outer knit stitch would smoothly slide next to the rib border, but in my bordering rib half-tiles, I wanted to add stitches on the edges, not grow them from the center stitch. \u00a0Nested central increases\u00a0might be good for another application (like the anise pod tips in illicium<\/a>) but here I wanted it to be like the ogees were tiles stamped out of\u00a0striped paper.<\/p>\n

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When my\u00a0friend Katie announced that she was carrying twin girls the project \u00a0jumped out of my swatch bag. \u00a0I could make two blankets, but I’m not constitutionally able to make two identical blankets at the same time. \u00a0So, one has Moroccan ogees, and the other has regular ogees, but they both are magenta and made of superwash wool. \u00a0Because babies need easy to launder knits, and so do their parents. \u00a0 I waited to mail the blankets until I’d photographed them. \u00a0(I’m still using the backup camera.) I’ve written one draft completely, the other one is charted, but not yet written, I need to tidy up the stitch graphs and symbols\u00a0yet again.<\/em><\/p>\n

But to state cheerfully what has been done: because I worked through the GAL I feel in love with a classic motif, and learned a neat trick. \u00a0Then I let my fingers finish a problem that I couldn’t solve with visualization or graphing. \u00a0And\u00a0because life means marking special occasions like new babies and Christmas, I’m starting to write\u00a0a pair of blanket patterns, and have un-vented a technique for reversible nearly horizontal rib borders.<\/p>\n

Tell me\u00a0your crafting life\u00a0is\u00a0as serpentine\u00a0as mine.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My Patterns Andalus and Habibi use these techniques.<\/p>\n