{"id":353,"date":"2012-05-24T20:06:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fallingblox.com\/?p=353"},"modified":"2012-05-24T20:06:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:06:53","slug":"mounqaliba-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/?p=353","title":{"rendered":"Mounqaliba and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, perhaps you remember back in February when I posted about a chart I appropriated<\/a> (with permission) from the sweater of a passing acquaintance. For a time, I obsessed about finding the source of the pattern, and I infected at least a couple of people with the same obsession. I helped one friend with an immense knitting library go through her magazines dating back to the 1980s (to try to catch patterns that Ravelry might not have due to age). I went through every single Dale of Norway pattern. I inquired in the Stranded group and the Xtreme Fair Isle group on Ravelry. I asked everyone at all of my knitting groups. Nobody ever found a chart that was the same or even similar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So I decided it was time to assume that the pattern was not published, and knit up a swatch of it. Perhaps in its knitted form, the pattern would jog someone’s memory. I decided to dig back into my stash and retrieve that large amount of Artyarns Ultramerino 4<\/a> that Iris so graciously bestowed upon me<\/a> nearly a year ago. I laid them all out and started to match them up into two-skein color combinations that resonated with me on some plane. The one I liked the least I decided to swatch with. I chose a repeat and started working. About halfway through, I decided to change the pattern a bit. In stranded knitting, the single-pixel “blips” of color are often used to keep long strands anchored. However, in double-knitting, these aren’t necessary. So I removed them and finished the swatch. You can check out the back here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>While working on this pattern, I was struck by this curvy colorwork’s resemblance to cables, and sat down to convert the entire pattern to cables<\/a>. In fact, because the pattern centers on a single column, cables weren’t the only answer — it’s a combination of increasing\/decreasing colorwork and cables, all done in double-knitting<\/a>. There are some utterly ridiculous techniques in this swatch, such as a 5-to-3 double-decrease and its inverse, a 3-to-5 double-increase. There’s also a place where a double-decrease is immediately followed by a double-increase in the next row, which creates the illusion that two individual chains are passing through each other. There are a couple of glitches in the chart resulting in some odd positioning, but I’ve fixed those and the next swatch will be better. It’s a gorgeous rendering of the original pattern, but I have no clue what I’m going to do with it. Perhaps I’ll need to swatch it again a little larger and something will come to me.<\/p>\n

The original pattern, however, I do know what I’m going to do with. Of course, I’ll remove the “blips” for a cleaner look (and to protect me from the original author who will no doubt surface as soon as I’ve published it). Because I’ve got a limited amount of each color and because I want to give the community something a little smaller and more manageable than my last couple of patterns, I decided on a fitting application. I feel a little conflicted about using this pattern on something as mundane as a gadget sleeve, but that’s what I’m planning on doing — a customizable gadget sleeve for any gadget. I’ve been taking gadget measurements and I think I’ve got enough to start with. I need to do a little more swatching, then I can work out the pattern. This will also probably require that I finally work out double-knit kitchener stitch.<\/p>\n

I did finally settle on a name. I was hoping to identify the actual culture the pattern comes from, but in the end I decided it looks Arabic or North African, and gave it an Arabic name. The name “Mounqaliba” sprang unbidden into my head — it’s the name of Natacha Atlas<\/a>‘ recent album — and when I looked it up, it translates to “in a state of reversal”. Could it get more perfect? Here’s hoping I don’t get sued by Natacha Atlas — although I don’t think she owns the word itself.<\/p>\n

In other news, I’ve been tapped by a friend of mine who’s a yarn-company rep to design 6 patterns over the next year for a colorwork club for a new line of their yarns. I can’t go into details because I’m not under contract yet (and I don’t know the level of disclosure allowed), but it’s nice to spend some time — for the first time in a very long while — designing something that’s not in double-knitting. I knit a really nice stranded colorwork hat in 3 days and now I’m going to knit another one to refine the pattern! I’ve got some neat ideas for the upcoming patterns …<\/p>\n

My Spring workshop season is over now, and while I have one workshop<\/a> weekend<\/a> at WEBS<\/a> in July, I’m basically on workshop hiatus for the summer. If your shop wants to get me in for the Fall workshop season, I’m starting to think about scheduling. Email me — or tell your shop to seek me out at TNNA<\/a> in Columbus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, perhaps you remember back in February when I posted about a chart I appropriated (with permission) from the sweater of a passing acquaintance. For a time, I obsessed about finding the source of the pattern, and I infected at least a couple of people with the same … Continue reading Mounqaliba and beyond<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-double-knitting","category-knitting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8eKU9-5H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallingblog.double-knitting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}