Underline Stitch

Underline Stitch

This is an original pattern stitch I developed a number of years ago. I call it "Underline Stitch" for the line of strands it forms across the work. It's best worked in a singles yarn because plies detract from the cohesive look of the strands. Also, it biases wildly, so a natural yarn that blocks well is a must. My swatches here are worked in Lamb's Pride Worsted on US 8 (5 mm) needles.

Underline Stitch

Loosely cast on any number of stitches.

Preparation row (RS): K every st wrapping yarn twice.

Row 1 (WS): K every st dropping the second wrap.


Row 2: For every st, with the right needle, go under the head of the next stitch in the row below from the bottom (Figure 1), lift it onto the left needle so it forms an "X" with the next stitch (Figure 2), put the right needle into the back of the 2 loops (Figure 3), and knit them tog from this position wrapping the needle twice.



To finish, work Row 2 with single wraps. Bind off on WS, very loosely, stretching the edge as you go.

Yarn Overload!!!!

The 2017 New Jersey Wool Walk was held a couple of weekends ago. Fourteen local yarn stores planned four days of yarn, yarn, and yarn. There were sales! Raffles! Snacks! Freebies! If you're from one of the larger states (which is most of them), you might think that fourteen NJ stores in four days is no problem. It's not impossible, but it's not all that easy either. I only made it to seven. I did not come away empty-handed from any of them, though. I did buy some yarn that I actually needed for designs I'm doing. The rest -  well what can I say? They had to come home with me.

The Lana Grossa Dacapo Multi is a cotton ribbon. I've swatched a little bit, but it came out too dense. When I go back to it, I'm going to go way up in needle size and pick an open pattern stitch. Since working with ribbon yarn has its own issues, I'm thinking it might warrant a whole post.

The Baah La Jolla yarn is 100% superwash merino wool. The color is "Pink Tourmaline" and it is a magenta-y delight. The Marinated Yarns is 80% superwash merino, 10% cashmere (yum yum), and 10% nylon. The blue is so beautifully deep, it is irresistible. The Primrose yarn is 100% superwash merino. The colorway is called "Nasty Unicorn" and it will go with almost everything I own.

The latter three yarns are all fingering-weight.  Ideally I'd be making socks, but a number of years ago I had to switch to all cotton all the time. Oh, well. There's probably enough yardage in each skein for a small shawl; if not, there might be other yarn in my stash to combine them with.

Until next time . . .