Thursday, May 26, 2016

Linen Stitch Bag from Unraveled - Day 2

Learning to love linen stitch...

Linen stitch on the wrong side
While linen stitch is one of the standards in any experienced knitter’s toolbox, I confess that I’ve not done much with it up until now.  It’s a sturdy stitch, giving a woven look (especially so on the  wrong side, in my opinion), and producing a thicker fabric that seems well-suited for something like a bag.  

Right side--with that pesky white line
While it’s repetitive, you do have to pay attention because a slip-up can be very tricky if not impossible to fix. Not that I know or anything (see photo—I’m pretty sure that white line isn’t supposed to be there…)

Linen stitch with one color is one thing.  Alternating with three colors?  That takes things up a notch.  Honestly, when I looked at these three cakes of yarn together, I couldn’t quite see how the rainbow one was going to play nicely with the purplish one.  I know the cream was in there to balance things out, but as I said before, color combos aren’t my strength.  In fact, it works.  I’m not sure how, but it does.

Despite the large needles, this isn’t fast stitching—all that switching from back to front.  I’m betting it goes through yarn at a greater rate than knit or purl, too—this is a dense fabric with lots of yarn inside it.  The place where the rounds join and I switch colors isn’t as neat as I’d like, but with the riot of colors going on I don’t think it matters much.


The next section is linen stitch with only one color.  I like that this project has several twists to keep things interesting.

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