Pattern play

Hi all! Sorry you haven’t heard from me in a while—my day job was keeping me pretty busy. Things have eased off a bit so I thought you might like to see what I’m playing around with right now.

Late at night I sometimes scan Pinterest for new stitch patterns I haven’t seen before. When I find an interesting one I save it and then start playing around with it. Here’s the most recent one I found, which was actually pretty large so I immediately downsized it.

Original pattern. This is actually downsized a couple of steps from the chart I found on Pinterest. Wanted to see if the motifs could be small enough but still distinct for socks. Looks pretty good (which is why it caught my eye in the first place). Motifs are separated by 2 purl stitches throughout.

Same thing, but in an effort to get the overall stitch count down (smaller is easier to manage in socks), I knit this one with only 1 purl stitch separating the motifs. It’s pretty good still, but some definition was lost for sure.

Larger version of this pattern (I actually drew out 4 different sizes of this pattern concept). 2 stitch purl separations. I do like this. There is some buckling in the center lines of the motifs.

Same thing but the center lines get a fix. I’ve slipped them on the wrong sides so no more buckling. Centerlines pretty even and equally distinct now. Great! I love this now. Can I make it even better by accentuating the curves of the motifs???

Same thing but added a single knit column in the separating purl columns. I thought they would hug the motifs and accentuate the wavy lines. Ackkkk. They just made everything look less distinct. Blech. Good idea theoretically, looks like crap in actuality. So….No, I can’t do that.

But here’s what I can do: eliminate the half motifs that occur at the beginning and end of working this pattern. This beginning chart looks fine so I’m certain the end chart will be as well.

So those are my knitting efforts currently. I’m still not certain what this pattern will insert itself into! I’ve done it here in some scrap fingering but I’m sure it would look great in heavier yarn as well. Hmmmmmmm. Stay tuned!