A view of my kitchen table as the triceratopses help me revise patterns.
I’m going into the third day of revising my existing patterns to change the short row technique I use (see last week’s post, Short Row Knitting and Dinosaur Knees). It has given me a new appreciation for just how much I use it to shape the animals. The winner is the apatosaurus, with 125 mentions of “w&t” (wrap and turn) in the pattern. The highland sheep and the pterodactyl are tied for least mentions at 11 apiece.
Since the shadow stitch technique means you are creating an additional stitch which will need to be decreased later, I have been spending my time mentally counting stitches and noting where in the row I have added the shadow stitches. Then I count the next row, change the appropriate knit or purl to a ksptog (knit shadow pair together) or psptog (purl shadow pair together), write down which new stitch has been shadowed, and move on.
A simple upturn or downturn in a dinosaur’s tail means four lines need to be changed
from: to:
Row 28: K10, w&t Row 28: K10, ss&t
Row 29: P8, w&t Row 29: P8, ss&t
Row 30: K10 Row 30: K8, ksptog, k1
Resume knitting in round. Resume knitting in round.
Rnd 31: Knit Rnd 31: K1, ksptog, k10
The top of a dinosaur’s leg is anywhere from 10 lines, for the small triceratops’ front leg, to 30 lines for the apatosaurus’ rear leg. Apatosauruses have really long thigh muscles. That looks like
from: to:
Row 2: K18, w&t Row 2: K18, ss&t
Row 3: P4, w&t Row 3: P4, ss&t
Row 4: K5, w&t Row 4: K4, ksptog, ss&t
Row 5: P6, w&t Row 5: P5, psptog, ss&t
Row 6: K7, w&t Row 6: K6, ksptog, ss&t
and so on.
The good news is that I am finished with my notes and ready to spend the day editing the actual documents. The bad news is that I have four additional patterns in the final editing stage which will also need to have all their wrap-and-turns changed to shadow-stitch-and-turn. It’s a good thing the triceratopses are such patient collaborators.