Double or Nothing Patterns: Hexworth

This is week 7 of the pattern highlights from my upcoming book. If you like what you’re reading about, please join my preorder mailing list. To read more about why I’m doing this (and why you should join the list), you can visit the Month 5 blog post.

Hexworth is worked in Bijou Basin Ranch Tibetan Dream, a yak and nylon fingering weight yarn. Thanks to Mari Weideman for knitting this one for me!

If the last pattern was a good example of the beginnings of double-knit texture, this pattern shows the next steps. Instead of creating a garter-stitch fabric that can be worked alongside double-knitting but isn’t actually double-knit at all, true textured double-knitting creates purls on the outside of the work where there normally are only knits. If a fabric is worked entirely using this method, you get reverse double-stockinette; I call the technique used to do this “reverse double-knitting” or “RDK” for short. The honeycomb pattern is adapted almost verbatim from a standard single-color or two-color stranded pattern — but because I want the two sides to remain together, I needed to adjust things a little bit. While working, the pattern looks like slightly distorted bricks; it’s only when you block it that the hexagons really take shape.

When I work with a yarn company at one of the big shows, it means that they’ve agreed to sell my books and patterns for me so that I don’t have to be there when I can’t be (during my classes). It’s also a boon for them — they get to show off some eye-catching pieces that hopefully draw people into their booth. With any luck, once they’re in there and perusing my patterns, they might also see some of the luxurious yarn that’s also there. What’s always a little awkward, however, is when I don’t have a single pattern done in that yarn. I’ve been working with Bijou Basin Ranch for a long time, and they have a policy. If I’m sitting in their booth, waiting for people to come by for a book signing, and I want to knit to pass the time, I can only use their yarn. Lucky for me, it’s awesome yarn. As a result of their policy, I’ve designed a couple of pieces in their yak-fiber blends and Hexworth is the most recent. Sometimes when I choose colors, I like to go with a solid and a variegated, just to keep up the intrigue. With bold patterns like this one, where each yarn has a chance to shine, that works really well. Sometimes, when the pattern is too intricate, the solid gets lost among the variegated stitches. With this pattern, the end result is excellent — but the process was a little fiddly. There are places where the variegated gets a little close to the natural brown, but it’s not like Kauni — another color will be coming along very shortly and will reduce the confusion. The end result is well worth it, I think.

Like the last pattern, the name here is fairly straightforward. I wanted a sort of refined, masculine name that also referred to the shape of the motif, so the name “Hexworth” popped into my head and I haven’t been able to think of it as anything else since. I toyed briefly with the name “Graphene”, referring to the hexagonal carbon nano-structure, but I figured that would be a little too inaccessible of a name. But you know, the book’s not done yet, so it’s possible I’ll settle on Graphene instead. Which do you like better?

This pattern will be available in my upcoming book “Double Or Nothing”. To be informed when the preorder period begins, please join my preorder mailing list. Thanks!