Tidewater Variation

Tidewater variation of my Embossed Diamonds:

For this version, the changes are simply that I did eighteen rows of 1×1 ribbing at the bottom and ending edges, and instead of k1, p1 to a total count of five at the sides, as in Embossed Diamonds, I did it to a count of fifteen before heading into the rest of the pattern–so add 10 stitches of ribbing to the sides. I quite prefer this over the original rendition.

The body of the afghan is essentially the traditional Shetland fern lace pattern, except that it has a make one (lifting the bar before the next stitch, twisting it into a stitch, and knitting that to increase by one) replacing each yarn over. Therefore, it has much more in common with a lace pattern than an aran one: stitches only overlap at the top of each diamond. The texture seen in the picture comes from stitches being pulled to the right or left, tightening them, (and the make one is especially tight) while the ones around them are more loosely knit. This means that the weight of the afghan will tend to pull the texture flat, especially the first time it ever gets wet. Like blocking lace. But that also means you can do this pattern with less yarn, because cabling tends to take up about an extra third of yarn over flat stockinette stitch. And this is far more interesting than stockinette, with not much more effort.

I did Tidewater, named after the area on the Virginia coast where my beloved Potomac River runs into the Chesapeake Bay, along with the York and James rivers, in three strands knitted together of 2-ply 65/35 cashmere/superfine geelong lambswool in fingering weight, the strands hand-dyed to three intensities of blue on top of the original shade of a light french blue. I used Jacquard acid dye in navy, though not to the intensity to make it navy.


© Copyright Alison J. Hyde 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. All rights reserved.

Note to yarn store owners, there having been problems with copyright violations: you do not have my permission to print out copies of my patterns in your stores. Individuals only may print out copies at home for their own private and personal use. Questions may be addressed to me at spindyeknit AT gmail DOT cahm.