Wednesday, February 08, 2006

FLAK - le Swatch

This is the swatch I ended up with for the FLAK, after a fair bit of experimentation. I wanted to simplify it a bit, perhaps make it appear a bit more solid.

Besides re-arranging the cables just a little bit:

  1. The filler stitch is now Seed Stitch. The two-row pattern will be easier on my brain, especially when we switch from back and forth to in the round.
  2. The wave cable is gone. In previous swatch incarnations, I had tried various subsitutions but I finally decided to just use another horseshoe instead.
  3. The rope cable is now a left crossing instead of right. I knit continental, and left crosses, particularly without a cable needle, seem to be easier.

The yarn is Briggs & Little Regal, colcour 23, Forest Brown. And it's really hard to get a picture of it. I tried about 20 times, and this is the best I could get. I apologize -- I know it's a crappy pic.

The centre panel is the same three horseshoes, but I've surrounded each of them with a rope. On each side of the centre panel, there will be a rope, honeycomb, braid, honeycomb, rope. On the outer edges will be another horseshoe.

One major benefit so far is that I finally learned how to cable without a cable needle!! It is great for the rope and the honeycomb, especially since each of them is just one stitch crossing. It goes much faster without the cable needle, and I seem to make fewer mistakes without it. I'm still using a cable needle for the braid and the honeycomb, but I can live with that.

All righty then, I guess that's it for today. February socks are started and well on their way. Time to knit some saddles, I guess :-) .

2 people had something to say:

Dave said...

Man, you really need to learn how to take pictures. Those are the pits.

Wannietta Kirkpatrick said...

Hi Dave - my name is Wannietta and I'm a FLAKer Slacker! I've done my swatches, but what with one knitting deadline and another have not cast on for my saddles yet. I think that your swatches are not the worst pictures that I have seen blogged - and they are certainly better than nothing!