Bias
or rather, the lack thereof.
Based on the fact that I've had no money coming in since my last payday in January 2005, I've decided that knitting will be from stash for the forseeable. I've got my eye on an old P&B pattern for a lacey dress for a toddler, not because there is any appropriate toddler to knit it for, but because I am puzzled.
The dress is in a version of feather and fan, with a lacey rib bodice and sleeves. It's worked in pieces, as usual, and I started to wonder if I could work it in the round, at least to the start of the bodice section. Then I started to ponder the wisdom of working what is basically a series of unidirectional decreases on a tube - won't it bias?
The pattern as written is a two-row repeat:
So, you end up with a charted pattern which looks something like this:
So, why doesn't it appear to bias when I knit it? Or does it, and I just need to work a bigger sample?
I'd assumed that it would bias slightly even worked flat, as the decreases are all going one way, but when I worked several balanced variations I can't see much difference at all between them at the original above. They're blocking right now (as in, I washed them and they need to dry before I can photograph them) but I'm definitely puzzled.
What am I missing?
I know that Wendy has been working a different version of feather and fan on her socks recently, so I might pop over there and ask for advice....
Based on the fact that I've had no money coming in since my last payday in January 2005, I've decided that knitting will be from stash for the forseeable. I've got my eye on an old P&B pattern for a lacey dress for a toddler, not because there is any appropriate toddler to knit it for, but because I am puzzled.
The dress is in a version of feather and fan, with a lacey rib bodice and sleeves. It's worked in pieces, as usual, and I started to wonder if I could work it in the round, at least to the start of the bodice section. Then I started to ponder the wisdom of working what is basically a series of unidirectional decreases on a tube - won't it bias?
The pattern as written is a two-row repeat:
Row 1:[3(k1, yo); 6k2tog; 3(k1, yo)]k1 and repeat to end
Row 2:purl to end
So, you end up with a charted pattern which looks something like this:
| O | O | O / / / / / / O | O | O |
| O | O | O / / / / / / O | O | O |
| O | O | O / / / / / / O | O | O |
| O | O | O / / / / / / O | O | O |
So, why doesn't it appear to bias when I knit it? Or does it, and I just need to work a bigger sample?
I'd assumed that it would bias slightly even worked flat, as the decreases are all going one way, but when I worked several balanced variations I can't see much difference at all between them at the original above. They're blocking right now (as in, I washed them and they need to dry before I can photograph them) but I'm definitely puzzled.
What am I missing?
I know that Wendy has been working a different version of feather and fan on her socks recently, so I might pop over there and ask for advice....
posted by LornaJay at 8:01 pm
1 Comments:
I'm suspecting that having the decreases separated from the increases is limiting the tendency to bias. If you did it as a sequence of Yo, k2tog over the same number of stitches, it would bias.
Feather and Fan is usually done as a sequence of decreases and increases that are arranged symetrically around a single knit stitch. Yours isn't, having 2 knits together at the beginning and end of the pattern repeat. I've seen this variant on the pattern somewhere else, but can't remember where.
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