My first follow-up post to the challenge I laid out for myself. I will be linking all these posts to the hashtag #elizabethknitsbarbara, just so all the posts will be in one place. I hope you all find my photos and notes helpful. Feel free to post to the hashtag if you knit any swatches.

When I said I was going to do EVERY stitch pattern in these books, I wasn’t kidding. 🙂 However, if you’re a knitter for 5 minutes, you know very well what regular Stockinette stitch is, so I chose to knit the two variations for this swatch instead.

Yarn Weight: fingering.
Needles: Size 6

NOTES
Crossed Stockinette is done by knitting through the back loop on right side rows. Everything else is the same.

Twisted Stockinette is done by knitting through the back loop on both sides.

Hopefully my photo is clear enough for you all to see the variation. My favorite of the two is Crossed – it dresses up Stockinette St a little. When I started, I was wondering why you never see these variations used much. Now I know – both are a MAJOR PAIN! I think I’d pull my hair out trying to make a whole sweater with endless rounds of Stockinette where you have to dig into the back loop for every single stitch. However, I think I could live with it as some added interest on a Stockinette section in a shawl. A small section. 🙂

Since we also know Garter st, I chose to knit this sample in boucle yarn someone had given me. I have never made anything in boucle, so I figured this was a good opportunity to swatch it. I did a small plain St st section in the middle just to see if you could see any difference in how it knit up, and obviously, you can. However, as expected, boucle gives VERY little stitch definition, so if I made anything in it, I’d probably just keep my life simple and stay with Garter.

Yarn Weight: DK.
Needles: Size 10

NOTES
I did a small plain St st section in the middle just to see if you could see any difference in how it knit up, and obviously, you can. However, as expected, boucle gives VERY little stitch definition, so if I made anything in it, I’d probably just keep my life simple and stay with Garter.

Yarn Weight: DK.
Needles: Size 10

NOTES
Nothing much to say about Moss St except that this is absolutely my favorite so far, and I don’t know why I haven’t used it more in my projects. Beautiful texture with some openness when done on these larger needles, but would be great on smaller ones too!

So now that we’ve done some of the basics, stay tuned for more updates with Barbara’s tougher stuff coming soon!