ARRGyle

Argyle is a Scottish knitting style that involves color contrasting diamonds and crosses, which require many individual strands of yarn on every row. I don’t love intarsia. But, you have to be Queen of Intarsia to make argyle anything.  So, I’ve been wondering what possessed me to attempt Sandi Rosner’s Argyle in the Holiday Issue of Vogue Knitting.

Here are the reasons, in roughly chronological order:

1.     I have started a collection of tweedy yarn (a Valley Yarn from WEBS called Worthington), and I had three colors leftover from other sweaters, and I thought they would look good on a dark grey background. Actually, only two colors are leftover—the third is still a sweater in progress.

2.     I only have about 5 projects going, so it seemed like a good time to add another. Plus, I've only just now started my holiday knitting.

3.     I was heading North in a few days, and would therefore be stopping at WEBS.  I am not capable of passing 91N, Exit 18, without going to WEBS.

4.     I always think of my Great Aunt Fran both when I see anything argyle and when I go North. She really was great in many ways, including that she was my dad’s aunt, and so was my Great Aunt.  She was also the real Queen of Argyle.  During her knitting days she was constantly making argyle socks for my great uncle. Once when I told her how much I disliked argyle knitting, she said she had become addicted to it. This will not happen to me. But, denial is the bedrock of addiction...

So there I was, up North, making my way through 54 rows of argyle.  When I first read through the pattern I thought it was unfortunate that I would have to add the crosses later using duplicate stitch, but at Row 26 was fully convinced that the whole thing, and me, would be crumpled on the floor if it was necessary to work with even one more yarn ball tethered to the project.  Eighteen is enough, thank you.  I developed a knitting system to make it through.  I commandeered the Southeast corner of the kitchen island, where I stood on the South edge to knit the front, and on the East edge to purl the back.  After each row I gingerly positioned the project to one side or the other of the 18 dangling mini balls.  The pattern indicates that working the argyle pattern on the back is optional.  No, sorry, I think not.

 

getting unwieldy

Eighteen mini-balls

Once the diamonds were nearly done I cut off the balls and let it get rat nesty

a view from the east side of the island

Part of the problem is that I am using sport weight yarn instead of the worsted the pattern calls for, and I’m making a large size, so instead of two pattern repeats, I’m doing four.  Double the number of dangling mini balls.

It all seems to have been worth the trouble--I'm happy with how the front is coming together!

One cross, two to go