Étude no 18: noodling around with Granite Stitch

Periodically I blog about some of my knitting experiments – I call these études, after the kind of musical exercises.

I recently joined Instagram (@gannetdesigns) and have been joining in with the @yarnlovechallenge, which provides photo prompts on a given yarny handcraft theme. The theme for this week is texture, which made my brain fizz.

I’ve been meaning to fool around a little with Granite Stitch just to see what I could see, because much as I love lace and cables, I think there’s a lot of other textured knitting stitches to play with and turn into other stitch patterns.

The base unit of Granite Stitch is 2 stitches and 4 rows:

granite stitch
click to enlarge


This swatch was my first pass at experimentation.

I’m not going to chart all of these, but here’s the instructions:

There’s two versions to be found in my Mon Tricot stitch dictionary. This is the one I like better, and is shown in the first and fourth band in the swatch:

Row 1 (right side): knit.
Row 2: k2tog across.
Row 3: work (k1, p1) in each stitch.
Row 4: purl. (The other version is kfb in row 3.)

The second band in the swatch is

Row 1: knit.
Row 2: *k2tog, k1; work from *.
Row 3: *k1, (k1, p1) in next stitch; work from *.
Row 4: purl.

I like that one.

The third band is

Row 1: knit.
Row 2: *k2tog, k3; work from *.
Row 3: *k3, (k1, p1) in next stitch; work from *.
Row 4: purl.

I’m not so excited about this one; it might as well just be a garter ridge.

The fifth band is

Row 1: knit.
Row 2: *k2tog, p1; work from *.
Row 3: *k1, (k1, p1) in next stitch; work from *.
Row 4: purl.

I thought I wouldn’t like this one while I was working it, but then I knit some plain stockinette for a few rows and it settled into place.

After I posted about that on Instagram, I focused a bit more on the last ridge in that swatch and decided to see what would happen if I repeated it. Note, I stretched the swatch some while blocking, because I wanted to emphasize the slight holes made by working (k1, p1) in one stitch.


That got me what I’m calling Granite Rib, because it makes vertical lines. It doesn’t actually act like ribbing. (For one thing, it’s not hard to make it curl.)


Then I decided to play with offsetting Granite Rib by one stitch on each successive repetition; the result of that was what I’m calling Granite Steps.

Here are the charts & instructions:

 

granite rib & step.png
click to enlarge

Notes:

  • These are stitch patterns such as might be found in a stitch dictionary. They are not a pattern for a finished object. Given the basic nature of these two stitch patterns, it’s not unlikely that someone else invented these before I did.
  • Granite Rib is a multiple of 3+2 stitches and 4 rows; Granite Steps is a multiple of 3+2 stitches and 12 rows. The stitch count changes.
  • I’ve made stitch maps for Granite Rib and Granite Steps.
  • Designers, please feel free to use these stitches in your patterns.
  • If you like my posts like this, please consider supporting me on Patreon or donating with my Paypal tip jar in the sidebar. Thanks!

Abbreviations:

  • k: knit.
  • k2tog: knit 2 stitches together as if they were 1. (Right-leaning decrease)
  • p: purl.

Granite rib
Row 1 (RS): knit.
Row 2 (WS): k2tog, *p1, k2tog; work from *.
Row 3: *(k1, p1) in next stitch, k1; work from *, (k1, p1) in next stitch.
Row 4: purl.

Granite step
Row 1 (RS): knit.
Row 2 (WS): k2tog, *p1, k2tog; work from *.
Row 3: *(k1, p1) in next stitch, k1; work from *, (k1, p1) in next stitch.
Row 4: purl.
Row 5: knit.
Row 6: p1, *k2tog, p1; work from *, p1.
Row 7: k1, *k1, (k1, p1) in next stitch; work from *, k1.
Row 8: purl.
Row 9: knit.
Row 10: p2, *k2tog, p1; work from *.
Row 11: *k1, (k1, p1) in next stitch; work from *, k2.
Row 12: purl.