herringbone cowl

Herringbone stitch is really interesting. It doesn't even look like knitting. A friend said she thought it reminded her of nalbinding. maybe that's why I like it. It's an easy stitch to do,  but it is also easy to make mistakes.I'm glad I chose to make a cowl, because really, the mistakes won't matter much in the end. Here is the project so far:

One of the tips I learned from the YouTube video is that you want to use larger needles than ordinarily called for by the size of the yarn. I am knitting with a fingering weight yarn. What I found when making my gauge swatch is that the first row is very tight to knit, even if you cast on loosely. For the cowl I cast on 224 stitches using size 7 needles, then transfered them to size 5 needles. That worked perfectly. If I were making socks with this yarn I would be using size 2 needles (or maybe even size 1 for dense socks), so you can see that I went up in size quite a bit. The video also implied that it is easier using metal needles, but I don't have any.

To knit this stitch flat, the video says for the first row, knit 2 together (k2 tog), but only drop one loop off the left needle. For the second row, purl 2 together through the back loop (p2 tog tbl), but only drop one loop off the left needle. I found this difficult to do. What worked for me was k2 tog tbl (etc.) for the first row and p2 tog (etc.) for the second row. The end result looks the same.

The cowl, however, is knit in the round. The first row is k2 tog (etc.), and the second row is k2 tog tbl (etc.). The trick comes when you reach the end of the row and switch directions. You have to keep moving the marker, or the starting place will migrate. You also need to remember which row you are on.

In this picture you can see some of my mistakes. Almost all are related to forgetting where I was. At the right edge of the photo you can see the start of rows. It looks sloppy, but that's just what happens. At the lower center you can see where I accidently dropped some stitches off the needle and they got mixed up when I put them back on. Higher up and to the left is a spot where I forgot which row I was on and switched back and forth. Finally, you can see a row in about the center of the photo where I forgot to switch all together, and knit two rows the same - both rows point this way: ///// The silly part was, it took me to row 15 to realize I can easily tell which row I am on.

                           

knit 2 together                                                           knit 2 together through the back loop

Hopefully by pointing out my mistakes you can avoid them if you try a project using this stitch.

After I finish the cowl, I am considering trying to design a pair of socks with herringbone cuffs. The trick will be to decrease quickly when I change to plain knitting for the foot - reducing both the number of stitches and the needle size. The cowl has 11 stitches/inch on size 5 needles, so you can get a sense of how dense it is.