I pulled out a random skein of yarn last night and decided to work up a quick short-row scarf swatch. I wanted to see what the yarn (Universal Yarn Classic Shades) would do, and if the short-row scarf technique would work in 1×1 ribbing.
As you can see, this is quite the misshapen mess!
Starting at the bottom, I cast on one stitch and worked back and forth in 1×1 ribbing, working a Y-increase at the end of every row. You can see the bottom brown module ended up being a right-angle triangle that grew from the point to the wide base. The increase scheme of 1 stitch at the edge of every row or 1 stitch at both edges every-other row typically yields the classic 45-45-90 triangle.
What got interesting was the short-row sections. I tried working them back and forth without any shaping. Start at the edge, work one pair of stitches in, turn work, work one pair of stitches back out to the edge. Next row, two pairs of stitches, turn, two pairs of stitches. Then three pairs and three pairs. And so on. When you've eaten up all the old module stitches, you still have the same number of live stitches on your needles, but you have a new module built up in short rows.
Except — what I got was not what I expected.
I expected the nice clean triangles like the two you see at the top of the swatch. What I got instead was misshaped half-fan, sort-of equilateral triangles. I made four of them because I just couldn't believe what I was getting.
Then I pulled up the standard recipe for a short-row scarf of this type. I saw there is usually an increase at the edge and a decrease at the join. And when I worked it that way, voila! I worked the increase at the beginning of the right-side row and the decrease at the beginning of the wrong-side row. The top triangle used a right-leaning reversible decrease, while the second-from-top triangle used a left-leaning reversible decrease. I prefer the right-leaning, as it makes the stitches on the new module consume the stitches from the old.
What I find interesting about this experiment is that both types of modules have the same number of stitches. Both start with one pair and grow by one pair each right-side row. When I think more about it, I recall making small geometric swatches. If you increase at the beginning of a row and decrease at the end of a row, you get a parallelogram that slants towards the right. If you do the reverse, the parallelogram slants to the left. Neither case changes the total number of stitches in the row. But if you work a swatch without increasing or decreasing at all, a constant stitch count yields a quadrilateral, such as a rectangle or square.
I also find it interesting how each stitch in the knitted fabric affects the fabric. That little increase and decrease seems to give the fabric a framework or structure. And the shaping nudges neighboring stitches. The modules without shaping seem to push into their neighbors or spill out the side of the swatch, like a blob of gelatin.
This experiment is a good reminder of:
As you can see, this is quite the misshapen mess!
Starting at the bottom, I cast on one stitch and worked back and forth in 1×1 ribbing, working a Y-increase at the end of every row. You can see the bottom brown module ended up being a right-angle triangle that grew from the point to the wide base. The increase scheme of 1 stitch at the edge of every row or 1 stitch at both edges every-other row typically yields the classic 45-45-90 triangle.
What got interesting was the short-row sections. I tried working them back and forth without any shaping. Start at the edge, work one pair of stitches in, turn work, work one pair of stitches back out to the edge. Next row, two pairs of stitches, turn, two pairs of stitches. Then three pairs and three pairs. And so on. When you've eaten up all the old module stitches, you still have the same number of live stitches on your needles, but you have a new module built up in short rows.
Except — what I got was not what I expected.
I expected the nice clean triangles like the two you see at the top of the swatch. What I got instead was misshaped half-fan, sort-of equilateral triangles. I made four of them because I just couldn't believe what I was getting.
Then I pulled up the standard recipe for a short-row scarf of this type. I saw there is usually an increase at the edge and a decrease at the join. And when I worked it that way, voila! I worked the increase at the beginning of the right-side row and the decrease at the beginning of the wrong-side row. The top triangle used a right-leaning reversible decrease, while the second-from-top triangle used a left-leaning reversible decrease. I prefer the right-leaning, as it makes the stitches on the new module consume the stitches from the old.
What I find interesting about this experiment is that both types of modules have the same number of stitches. Both start with one pair and grow by one pair each right-side row. When I think more about it, I recall making small geometric swatches. If you increase at the beginning of a row and decrease at the end of a row, you get a parallelogram that slants towards the right. If you do the reverse, the parallelogram slants to the left. Neither case changes the total number of stitches in the row. But if you work a swatch without increasing or decreasing at all, a constant stitch count yields a quadrilateral, such as a rectangle or square.
I also find it interesting how each stitch in the knitted fabric affects the fabric. That little increase and decrease seems to give the fabric a framework or structure. And the shaping nudges neighboring stitches. The modules without shaping seem to push into their neighbors or spill out the side of the swatch, like a blob of gelatin.
This experiment is a good reminder of:
- The importance of making a swatch.
- Even though it doesn't change your stitch count, sometimes one increase paired with one decrease makes a significant difference!
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