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Oct 16, 2013

The Swafghan Backstory - Part 1

I've talked a bit about the Swafghan, the sweater I converted into an afghan. This WIP has quite a backstory, some of which I've shared on Ravelry thanks to an insightful question from Evelyn of Project: Stash.

Perhaps it's time to share some of that context here.

The Swafghan (aka Color Check) in its current form is less than a year old. The original project, an unstructured kimono-like jacket, dates back to 2003 or thereabouts.

It all started as an exercise in stitch patterns and color. I'd recently discovered slip-stitches, and in my reading, I ran across this warning:
You should not attempt to carry yarn across more than three stitches or more than three rows of knitting.
My first thought was, That's interesting. My second was, What happens if you do? (You can see where this is headed, can't you?)

Somewhere along the way, I discovered the Basket slip stitch (Walker, Treasury, p. 63). What would happen if I took that basic stitch, converted it to pure stockinette and slipped the contrast color across three stitches and four rows? Or four stitches and four rows? Or ... I swatched and calculated and swatched some more.

It worked. As long as I paid attention to my tension, it came out beautifully. No puckers, no pulls, no nips, no tucks. By experimenting further, I found that at the right gauge, this modified stitch created a nearly perfect one-inch square.

I was hooked.

And that's when I asked a truly dangerous question: How can I put this new discovery to use? We can talk about that next time.



UPDATE
For those of you who've asked: The pattern has been released: Color Check Afghan.

The design was featured by Brown Sheep on Facebook (Aug 31, 2015).

2 comments:

Thanks for stopping by! I read and enjoy each and every comment. If you have questions, share those too, and I'll do my best to respond.
-b