Frankie's Knitted Stuff
Yarn and needles
Skinny Twist is a narrow scarf featuring a strange stitch pattern of my own devising. It is about 12cm / 5" wide and 120cm / 47" long and uses about 80g of 4 ply yarn. The pattern could be adapted for other weights of yarn. The yarn I used was Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, a superwash merino fingering yarn; the shade is Wool in the Woods Lottery. This yarn has 420 yards in 4 oz which equates to about 334m / 100g. You will also need two pairs of needles, one two sizes bigger than the other. I used 4.5 and 5.5mm needles (US sizes 7 and 9). Actually, you only need one needle in the larger size but more of that later ...
Starting to knit
Using the 4.5mm needles and the cable method, cast on 24 stitches. Knit four rows. Next row: K1, m1, \*K2, m1, repeat from \* to last st, K1 (36 sts). Knit one more row, this time with a 5.5mm needle. So far, so normal. Now it starts to get interesting.
That stitch pattern
This is worked with one small and one big needle. The first row, using the small needle, contains the pattern. Pairs of stitches are first knitted and then purled together. This will be abbreviated as K2P2tog and is worked like this: Knit two stitches together, leaving them on the left needle, then purl the same two stitches together and slip the stitches off the left needle as normal. The second row, using the big needle is a plain knitted row. So, the two row stitch pattern is: Row 1: (small needle) K2, \*K2P2tog, repeat from \* to last 2 sts, K2. Row 2: (big needle) Knit. Using different size needles helps to keep the knitted fabric flat and makes the twisted stitches more comfortable to knit. It also makes it easy to remember which row to knit next.
The finished fabric has lines of twists on one side and an open, squared pattern on the other - a bit like a waffle weave. Just keep working the two rows of the stitch pattern until your scarf is 120cm long, or as long as you want it to be. The end of the scarf is worked on 4.5mm needles. First, knit one row. Next row: \*K1, K2tog, repeat from \* to end (24 sts). Knit four more rows. Cast off knitwise, using the 5.5mm needle. That's it ... easy peasy.
Abbreviations
st / sts stitch / stitches Kknit m1 make 1 by lifting the thread before the next stitch and knitting into the back of it K2tog knit two stitches together K2P2tog knit two, then purl two stitches together (explained in pattern) Frankie Brown, 2013. My patterns are for personal use only and should not be used to knit items for sale. Please do not use them for teaching purposes without my permission.
