Okay, so yesterday I was wrestling with this weird knitting idea I got stuck in my head – wanted to make something stretchy and patterned, kinda like elastic bands crossing each other, but with yarn. You know how those old ladder stitch techniques just look like straight lines? I wanted more criss-cross action. Kept doodling on scrap paper, circles and lines overlapping, but it wasn’t clicking.
Starting Simple (And Failing)
Grabbed my size 8 needles and some bulky green yarn – easier to see. Thought, “Right, just gotta make some deliberate gaps and then weave yarn through later.” Cast on 20 stitches. Knit a plain row. Then tried dropping stitches on purpose on the next row, thinking I’d ladder them back up differently. Nope. Total disaster. Yarn overs? Made holes, sure, but messy ones. Nothing controlled. Ripped it back, muttered some words. Coffee break needed.
The Accident That Clicked
Later, half-watching the game replay, mind wandering, I knit a few rows plain. Got bored. On a knit row, I knit 2 stitches, then went to slip a stitch purlwise like usual for a different technique… but flubbed. Instead of slipping one, I kinda slipped two stitches knitwise onto the right needle without working them at all. Then just knit the next stitch. Whoops. Noticed the huge gap. Started to curse, pulled the needle out to fix it…
Stopped. Held up the knitting. That stupid mistake… that huge loop hanging there? Looked exactly like a bigger, cleaner ladder rung I’d been trying to force earlier. Way cleaner than my yarn over holes.
“Hold up… what if…?”
Making It Work (Kind Of)
Ripped back again (poor yarn was getting frayed). Cast on 12 instead. Knit one plain row. Okay, now here’s the “pattern”:
- Row 1 (Setup): Slip 1 purlwise with yarn in back, knit 1, repeat to end. Felt weird slipping at the start.
- Row 2: Pure purl. Boring, but necessary.
- Row 3 (The Trick): Knit 2. NOW… slipped the next 2 stitches together knitwise onto the right needle (like my accident!), yarn is now at the back. Then knit the next stitch normally.
- Repeated knit 1, slip 2 together knitwise, knit 1 across. Looked crazy wonky.
- Row 4: Just purled everything again, trying not to drop the floppy slipped stitches.
Turned it over. Chaos. BUT… there were distinct columns and these long horizontal floats where I’d slipped! Definitely ladder-ish. Needs refinement? Oh yeah. Edges looked like garbage. But the principle… that clumsy slip-2 move? That was making the defined gap I wanted.
The “Code” Bit (Sort Of)
Tried a few variations. Found that how many I slipped controlled the “rung” length. Did slip 1 knitwise instead of 2 – smaller gap. Did it every other row? Weird diagonal things started happening, wasn’t ready for that. Settled (for now) on doing this slip trick row every third row to space the “rungs” a bit better. Still figuring out the repeat timing.
Trying to scribble down what I did:
- Cast on multiples of? Dunno yet.
- Setup Row: Sl1, K1 across
- All WS rows: Purl (seems safest)
- Pattern Row (RS): K2, slip 2 tog kwise, K1 repeat, end however
- Do pattern row every X rows?
Messy. Functional? Maybe for washcloths where chaos is okay. Not posting this as a real “pattern” anytime soon! But the core trick – deliberately slipping multiple stitches together knitwise on a knit row? That was the gold.
And Here I Sit
So now I’ve got this little lumpy green rectangle pinned to my corkboard. Wife walks in, squints, asks if I finally fixed the hole in my sock. Ha. No. Told her it’s the groundbreaking “Ladder Lace Code.” She patted my shoulder. “Looks itchy, honey.” Fair point.
The “code” part? Honestly, it just sounded cooler than “That Ladder Thing With Slipping Stitches Experiment #4.” Maybe once I crack spacing and tidying it up… Anyway, that’s where it’s at today. The accidental slip-2 move made the ladder rung. Everything else was just trying to build a shaky structure around it. Got coffee stains on my notes. Knitting life.
