The Knitting Fiend

Both Sachi and Spike suggested I knit a “garterlac” scarf. It turns out each meant different things by garterlac. Both ideas are good, but I’m going to stick with my ribbing idea!

Still, I think it’s interesting to show different types of “Knit-lacs” and compare how they look. After all, knitters pick projects based on how they want their item to look, so seeing the options is great.

Standard Entrelac

First , let’s look at normal entrelac. Here’s a sample of entrelac knit by Spinsters Blog.
One feature of stockinette entrelac (aka normal entrelac) is the “blocks” are taller than they are wide. Because of this, the surface ripples and bulges ever so slightly, resulting in an emphasized “up and down” woven effect. You can see this in the sample to the left.

You’ll also sometimes notice blocks can seem a bit hourglass shaped with the centers a bit narrower than the tops and bottoms. This doesn’t show much in the sample I found– but you’ll sometimes see it.

Generally, both the rippling and “hourglass” shape are more noticeable before blocking. Usually, knitters who knit entrelac want the dimensional effect, just as they want cables to have a “up-down” woven effect. Consequently, these knitters don’t block the fabric at all, or they block very lightly. Still, some do block hard, and heavily blocked entrelac can look nice too.

The down side: stockinette entrelac is not truly reversible. If you flipped this over, you would notice the opposite side is reverse stockinette. I found this example at sknitty. You get to decide if you want a scarf that flips over and looks like this. I don’t; that’s why I’m working or ribbed entrelac instead of just following the directions for the “Danica” scarf at “Knitty”.

Garterlac I

Now, let’s look at “garterlac”. Most commonly, “garterlac” seems to refer to entrelac where the knitter knits each block in garter stitch. Here’s an example from Criminy Jickets who provides directions for garterlac dishcloths at his blog.

Because each block is knit in garter-stitch, garterlac is truly reversible. I think that’s an advantage because I really don’t like having to look for the “right side” when I’m putting a scarf on. Maybe that’s just me?

Still, let’s compare garterlac to the stockinette (aka “normal”) entrelac.

To the right, you can see Spike’s garterlac afghan. Notice the individual blocks are nearly square. This is because the height of two rows of garter stitch is nearly equal to the width of 1 stitch. One result is the blocks do tend to look like true diamonds; there is never any “hourglass” type effect. Another result is the fabric lies very flat even with very little blocking; it doesn’t have the “dimensional up-down” effect. This is good if you don’t want a dimensional effect; it’s bad if you want one. (Duh! :))

Even without the “up and down” effect, garterlac the garter ridges may give garterlac a very strong “woven” effect. As you can see in the dishcloths above, the woven effect is particularly strong when you use variegated yarn; it may vanish entirely in an item is knit in a single color or in random colored blocks. In that case, you can treat them more like simple blocks of color and mimic popular block quilt patterns.

So, you have options!

So, strong woven effect (or not) and reversible. A great stitch for a scarf, right? Yep!

So, why don’t I do this? Well…. I want those elongated blocks! Plus, heck, I like doing things I haven’t seen done!

Garterlac II

It turns out Sachi was suggesting that I alternate knitting the stockinette blocks so that half would appear knit side facing and half purl side facing. This would be perfectly reversible, and it may look pretty darn cool. But, you’ll notice no pictures? I couldn’t find an example! So, we’ll all need to guess what this looks like! (I may eventually try it.)

Ribbed Entrelac

Ok, this is what I’m going to do. I couldn’t find any samples on the web. (For that matter, I’ve never seen ribbed entrelac, but that doesn’t mean I’m the first to do it.)

How does it look? Well, rib stitches are “tall” like stockinette so the blocks that are tall compared to their width. Because ribbing is reversible, each block lies flat, and I’m not getting any “up and down” dimensional effect. However, I am getting a bit of an hourglass effect. The tops and bottoms stretch to the length of a block an the centers narrow a bit. (Not a lot– but a bit.)

And of course, most important, this is reversible. I do think I’m going to like this better than a pure stockinet entrelac scarf.