#knitting experiment

I can’t tell if this is horrible or really kitschy and adorable 👀 Experiments like this are always fun, even if they don’t work out the way i want!!

Something like casting on to the recommended size needle, and using a two- or three-sizes larger needle for the other direction.

Keeping in mind the results of the last experiment I'm not going to be tapering off the end for the tail. I'm pretty happy with how the tail ended up up. I think that part of the pattern will hold up in the real thing. For this part I want to focus on the body shaping.

Judging by the way the tail curved I'm guessing that the longer the short row is compared to the length of the total row the more dramatic the curve. So I increased the length of each row to 15. It made sense at the time.

Here's what I ended up doing.

Cast on fifteen stitches

Rows 1-10 k

Row 11 k5 wt k5

Row 12-13 k

Row 14 k7 wt k7

Rows 15-16 k

Row 17 k9 wt k9

Rows 18-19

Row 20 k11 wt k11

Rows 21-22 k

Row 23 k13 wt k13

Rows 24-25 k

Row 26 k11 wt k11

Rows 27-28 k

Row 29 k9 wt k9

Rows 30-31 k

Row 32 k7 wt k7

Rows 33-34 k

Row 35 k5 wt k5

Rows 35-40 k

Cast off

The curve is pretty subtle on this one. I'm using the knit rows between my short rows to space them a bit. But maybe a sharper curve would be better? Something like

Cast on fifteen stitches

Rows 1-10 k

Row 11 k2 wt k2

Row 12 k4 wt k4

Row 13 k6 wt k6

Row 14 k8 wt k8

Row 15 k10 wt k10

Row 16 k12 wt k12

Row 17 k14 wt k14

Row 18 k12 wt k12

Row 19 k10 wt k10

Row 20 k8 wt k8

Row 21 k6 wt k6

Row 22 k4 wt k4

Row 23 k2 wt k2

Rows 24-34 k

The curve is a bit more pronounced. Obviously it's a little shorter without the spacer rows. I don't care for the more pronounced gap you can see on row 24. There's probably a way to prevent that, but I'm not sure how.

Here they are side by side.

I can do better. I can perfect this.

Cast on fifteen stitches

Rows 1-10

Row 11 k5 wt k5

Row 12 k7 wt k7

Row 13 k5 wt k5

Rows 14-15 k

Repeat rows 11-13 three times

Knit ten rows

Cast off

That’s a rough sketch of what I want to achieve. To that end I’m noodling around trying to figure out how best to make the shape I want. I’ve never really written my own pattern before, so I thought it might be a fun thing to document for the internet.

This is the result of my first experiment.

I’m working it on a smaller scale so I can knit these mockups a bit faster. I’m using short rows for the shaping of the curve.

Here’s the pattern I used if anyone’s interested.

Cast on 10 stitches

Rows 1-4 k

Row 5 k2 wt k2

Rows 6-7 k

Row 8 k4 wt k4

Rows 9-10 k

Row 11 k6 wt k6

Rows 12-13 k

Row 14 k8 wt k8

Rows 15-16 k

Row 17 k8 wt k8

Row 18 k to last 3 stitches k2tog k

Row 19 k

Row 20 k6 wt k6

Row 21 k to last 3 stitches k2tog k

Row 22 k

Row 23 k4 wt k4

Row 24 k to last 3 stitches k2tog k

Row 25 k

Row 26 k2 wt k2

Row 28 k to last 3 stitches k2tog k

Row 29 k

Repeat last three rows until three stitches remain and cast off.

Results

The curve of the tail is very dramatic, but the curve in the body area isn't very noticeable at all. I might have to begin the shaping half way through the final product. Next experiment will be longer short rows to see if that makes the curve more dramatic.

I had a knitting project with me (of course). Socks (double of course). Unfortunately, the size 1 needles I had with me were much too small for knitting strips of fabric. I could have waited until the end of the our work day, found a yarn store, and bought some fat needles. But as soon as I had this unusual yarn in my hands, I wanted to know what it would look like knit up. So I dug some pens out of my purse and used them as needles.

Humble Bic pens doing the work of giants.

It worked much better than I imagined. I had to push the fabric on and off the pens with my fingers, applying more pressure than you would with regular needles. The pen tips were easy to slide into the stitches and I only got a little ink on my hand in the process.

Minimal pen marks. I was surprised.

While the pens weren’t ideal tools, they did work. I knit up all the yarn we had to make a narrow, multi-colored scarf.

The finished scarf

Cleo models the final product

The biggest down side: both pens gave their lives to make this scarf.

I knew I was killing them early on. I tried to make a note with one and it wouldn’t write. That’s when I saw the ink all globbed in the bottom and knew something was wrong.

As far as I can tell, repeatedly flexing the pens broke the inner tubes. Fortunately, the ink didn’t leak out of the pen proper.

I was pleased that my knitting hack worked as well as it did. In fact, I’m thinking I should try using pencils next.

Have you tried doing needlework with non-traditional tools? Did it work?