Transcript
Here’s another cool way to play with knits and purls to make something called basket weave. This is really neat. It makes what looks like a basket weave fabric, but really it’s just playing with squares of stockinette and squares of reverse stockinette. So here on the sample you can see that what I have going on here is alternating squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette.
Reverse stockinette is just the back of stockinette. So in the bottom fabric here, at the bottom of this fabric I have three stitches of purl, three stitches of knit, three stitches of purl, three stitches of knit alternating across. I maintained that pattern four rows high. That’s because knit stitches are shorter and fatter than they are tall. So if you want a square that’s three stitches wide, you have to make it four stitches tall in order to render a square.
So now I’m going to show you how to switch in order to make the basket weave. So here on the last row you can see that I’ve got a stockinette fabric here and a reverse stockinette fabric here in my squares. So it’s time to switch them and that just means, because this is stockinette it has knits on this side and purls on that side. I want to switch it, which means I’m going to start with my purls.
So I’m going to purl three, and then I’m going to move the yarn, and knit three on top of these purls. Then I’m going to move the yarn and purl three on top of these knits, move the yarn and knit three on top of these purls. So all I’m doing is switching the pattern that I had previously established in the four rows below.
So that’s a front and a back, and a front and a back. So I’m doing the front of this newly established pattern and here we can see it has made the switch on top of the stockinette, I see the beginning of revers stockinette. And on top of the reverse stockinette, I see my little V’s beginning of stockinette. So now let’s look at the back.
We’re going to continue to knit them as we see them. So I see purls, I’m going to purl, and then I’m going to move the yarn and knit three, just continuing what I’ve established in the last row. So you only have to switch your pattern if you’re doing squares this size every fourth row. So you’ll do a front and a back and a front and a back, and then you’ll switch and do the opposite, front and back and front and back, making little squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette.
So let’s see what that looks like after two rows. Oh, boy I can see that half of my pattern is done, and after I did two more rows I would switch again, and continue to make little squares that alternate. And if little squares of three wide and four tall are too small for you, play with the numbers. You can do any number of stitches, as long as you remember that if you want squares they have to be a little taller than they are wide.
So in this example I have done six stitches by six stitches and I’m knitting for seven rows. Here we go again with the switching. We’ve got reverse stockinette here, stockinette here alternating as we go. So obviously, in order to switch it, I’m going to need to knit this part now. I’m going to do a slip stitch edge, which I just automatically put on everything and begin to knit across, four-five-six.
Now here’s my stockinette portion, so I’m going to move my yarn, and begin reverse stockinette by purling six here. And I would continue as set for seven rows or eight rows. Really, you can play with your row height and just see what looks more square to you. Have fun with basket weave.
