Friday, October 02, 2009
The Under-Rated Seed Stitch
The Seed Stitch, like the Garter Stitch, is often pooh-poohed by knitters as a stitch of little significance. OK for basic knitting, but not very exciting on its own. Well, I don't agree.
I love Seed Stitch as I do Garter Stitch. And you will have noticed that I use both liberally in my designing.
Seed Stitch forms the basic ground for Open Waters:
It's a major component in the panels for Shorelines:
It has always been recommended for its reversible structure as a binding for collars and edgings. But I have liked to use it for its own sake, too.
It has lots of advantages besides being reversible. It lies flat and does not curl at the edges. Mostly I like it for its texture, that nubbly, rippled effect the little bumps form. It is particularly effective when worked in a variegated yarn, like Lucy Neatby's Cat's Pajama's as pictured here in "Blue Vesuvius".
Those purl bumps make for little pops of colour and the surface looks as though it has been beaded.
Seed Stitch is one of the easiest stitches to learn and use:
CO an odd number of stitches.
Row 1: *K1, p1, repeat from * to last st, k1.
Row 2 and all following rows: Same as Row 1.
It's the perfect stitch for a simple scarf. Take a special yarn, a handpainted one, if possible, like Cat's Pajama's with its bit of cashmere. CO an odd number of stitches, enough for the width of your scarf. And follow the pattern above until your scarf is the length you want.
What could be easier?
