The Knitting Fiend

I think this is the mystery stitch for Yvonne’s cape! For lack of a name, I’m going to call it “Elongated 4 Row Garter Stitch.” I knit it in Caron Simply Soft; it would look best in a soft fluffy yarn. Mohair would be stupendous.

Kim Salazar of String-Or-Nothing suggested the instructions, which are as follows:

• Work on any number of stitches.
• Grab color #1
• Row 1 & 2: Knit all stitches.
• Row 3: * K1 wrapping yarn around needle 3 times while forming the knit stitch; repeat from *.
• Row 4. *K1, drop 2 extra loops off needle without working them; repeat from *
• Repeat rows 1-4 using second color.

I’d never actually worked elongated stitches; so I tried the stitch out. I worked a few rows in white, and then changed to alternating colors.

Ok, I alternated colors only once. Still, you can see it does look like Yvonne’s mystery stitch.

It turns out that this is quite easy to work. The only unusual technique is working what I will call “elongated” stitches. These are initiated in row 3 and finished in row 4.

Naturally, I took pictures as I worked these rows. Guess what? You do just what the directions say.

Here are illustrations of how to work rows 3 and 4.

Row 3 contains this operation: “K1 wrapping yarn around needle 3 times while forming the knit stitch”. To do this, insert the right tip into the stitch on the left tip knit wise (shown above, left); then wrap the yarn around the right needle tip three times (above right). Pull all three loops through just as though you were knitting. You will notice a sort of “three loop stitch” on the right tip. That’s just what you want.

Now, I have one bit of advice. The first time I did this, I tended to wrap the three loops fairly tightly. As a result, it was difficult to slide the stitches along the needle when working row 4 . I later tried to wrap less tightly, but I couldn’t do it. I finally solved this by making sure I slid the triple loop stitch I just worked as far to the right as I could, thus lengthening the strand required to form the next elongated stitch. This ensured there was a nice long strand of yarn between each stitch, and prevented them from tightening too much.

When working row 4, knit into one the three loops created when you wrapped three times to knit a stitch in row 3; see photo to the left. I’ve inserted the tip into the loop furthest to the left; turns out it doesn’t matter much which loop you knit into. Just be sure to pull all three loops off the left needle tip. That’s what give the stitch in row 3 enough yarn to elongate.

Pretty slick, huh?

But I know my Mom is reading and muttering “Did you lose that condo needle I gave you? Yep, Mom worked elongated stitches an even slicker way “back in the day” when the mysteriously named “Condo Knitting” was “in”. She used this condo needle (it’s labeled size US 35) paired with US size 10 to knit a gorgeous afghan.

If you knit the condo needle, the instructions are:

• Begin color A.
• Row 1 , 2 and 4: Use smaller needle. Knit all stitches.
• Row 3: Use larger needle. Knit all stitches.
• Repeat rows 1-4 with color A.
• Change to color B; repeat rows 1-4.

Oh.. and if you look carefully, you’ll notice that’s a different elongated stitch in the photo. I call it “Two Row Elongated Stockinette”.

If you use a condo needle the instructions are:

• Row 1: Knit all stitches with smaller diameter needle.
• Row 2: Purl all stitches with larger diameter needle.

What could be easier? I’ll admit though, I used Kim’s wrapping three times technique in row 1. Then I purled into in of the three loops, dropping the extras in row 3. Also easy.

Either way you want to work it, try these stitches in mohair; you’ll love the look.

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This article is filed in stitch patterns.