I invented a new knitting stitch

Cafe Society
#1

Well, OK, probably a better word would be “discovered”: in the centuries that people have been knitting, I’m sure I’m not the first person to do this combination of stitches. It’s pretty basic. But I can’t find out what the stitch may be called.

Does anyone recognize it?* Does it have a name?

I don’t knit to a pattern; I make up my projects as I go along. So I’m not very good at reading or writing patterns. But, in what is probably pretty much lay terms, the stitch is basically (this is circular, so all from one side):

row 1: knit 3 together, 2 yarnovers (repeat)
row 2: knit 1, purl the first yarnover, knit the second (repeat)
(repeat)

*(Sorry, I only have a scanner here, no camera.)

#2

Elizabeth Zimmerman called that “unventing”. I’m sure I’ve seen that somewhere before, but I can’t remember where or what it was called.

#3

I have patterns called “lace ladders” - but they’re four stitch repeats -
R1: K2tog, yo twice, ssk
R2: K1, K1/P1 into the double yo, K1

and variations - it ends up with double column instead of the single one you’ve got.

#4

That would make some nice woolen lingerie.

#5

What I want to know is does it bias? The equivalent k2tog, yo then purl the wrong side biases very prettily, and I’m curious!

Lovely open mesh, at any rate.

#6

Does bias mean at an angle? I tried the one you mentioned above, and it does go diagonally, like a diamond mesh. This one, the one I “unvented,” is pretty non-biasy. I suppose you could do it at an angle: increase along one side while you decrease along the other. Haven’t tried that though.

#7

Yes, at an angle :slight_smile: The other pattern does bias because all the decreases line up on top of each other leaning in one direction, which is why I thought the k3togs might do the same thing. Interesting that they don’t!

#8

If I read that correctly, it’s pretty much the same as mine. My “knit three together” is probably more correctly written in two steps. With the three stitches before me, I insert the needle knitwise into the first two, as if to knit them together, and move them thus twisted to the right needle. (Is that “ssk”?) Then I knit the leftmost of the three, and slip those first two back over it. So, numbering the stitches right to left as 1,2,3, I knit them all together with 2 on top, 1 in the middle, and three in the back. How is that notated?

#9

That would be written: sl2 (slip 2, usually as if to knit, are you slipping knitwise or purlwise?) K1 (knit 1) psso (pass slipped stitches over), which is different from K3tog, which is knitting all three stitches together on the left needle. A SSK (slip slip knit) is slipping two stitches, separately, as if to knit, onto the right needle, and then knitting them off the right needle. A SSK slants left, K2tog (or 3, etc) slants right, but a psso doesn’t slant and won’t bias the fabric.

#10

It would be defined in the pattern notes.
I’d expect to see something like “s2,k1,p2sso - slip two together, knit 1, pass the two slipped stitches over the knit stitch.” before the pattern directions actually got to the direction part.

Because you’re combining a left and right decrease, I wouldn’t expect a bias. A true k3 tog might bias.

#11

Probably not; the only difference is in which stitch is on top. The three stitches are bracketed by increases, so there’s a net-zero lateral gain, so no bias.

#12

I usually do this one slightly differently, although the middle looks exactly the same.

First of all, there are different ways to knit 3 together, which can be tricky in lace knitting. They are often abbreviated as things like SK2P (slip one, knit 2 together, pass it over the slipped stitch). I think this is the one that has the middle stitch on top.

Here is my variation:

Edge stitch, [YO (yarn over), SK2P, YO] repeat between brackets to end, edge stitch.

You still essentially do the knit 3 tog, yarn over twice, but instead of thinking of it like that, which ends with the double yarn over, think of it as a yarn over on each side of the triple. I think it looks more balanced at the end parts.

A similar stitch I like is to to knit three stitches into the knit 3 together, no yarn overs needed. I either knit-purl-knit into the same stitch, or else knit-yarn over- knit into the same stitch.