Lexicon
By Megan Goodacre
It's been quite a week. New pattern collection on Monday, which is new for me, I've never published 5 patterns at once. (If you bought Sonnet or Couplet, there are a couple of teensy corrections. Either download fresh files or check the errata page.)
And then the oldest child, my sweet little donkey of a boy, went and broke his arm. Apparently it had something to do with jumping off a large rock on to a tree branch. It's probably better that I don't know the details. And of course it's his right hand (goodbye clarinet) and of course it requires a long arm cast that can't get wet for One Thousand Weeks.
But it's fine and he's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Say it one more time and you'll believe me right?
The Shetland Museum and Archives has an amazing online photo library, and it includes a large section on textiles. In the Knitwear gallery, you can look at great old photos of Fair Isle sweaters, knitting factories, and fishermen's sweaters. I like examining these grainy old photos of fishermen's sweaters—called ganseys, guernseys, or frokes—for the combination of stitch patterns. They are always relatively simple. Mostly knits and purls, geometric, sometimes a few small cables. The construction of the sweater is reflected in the geometry of the texture.
There is, of course, a very popular gansey inspired pattern on Ravelry; Jared Flood's Guernsey Wrap. And when one is coming up with design ideas, one tries to not repeat patterns that are already out there. So I filed the gansey thing away.
But the idea of making a wrap pattern with no lace, no frills, only knits and purls, stuck with me. And I think that the gansey tradition is so embedded in knitting that it will never be exhausted. Too many possibilities left to explore.
And so, Lexicon.
The name? I love the name, for Three Reasons.
Reason the first: It's a cool word and rolls off the tongue.
Reason the second: It has only been used once before on Ravelry. (Naming is tricky; my Sonnet wrap is the eleventh pattern with the word "sonnet").
Reason the third: Lexicon means an inventory of words. And it's nice to think of the knit and the purl as the knitter's lexicon. (Are you muttering, oh god Megan, stop being so cerebral?)
Reason the fourth (bonus reason!): All five patterns in Layer are named with a linguistic or literary word: Sonnet, Couplet, Ode, Lyric and Lexicon.
The pattern...
Very, very simple. It combines, really, only 3 stitch patterns. A "herringbone" motif, garter stitch, and a garter stitch rib.
The pattern is charted, for those of you who like charts.
The pattern is also written out, for those of you who like words.
And, there is also a to-scale illustration of the wrap, with each section marked, for those of who have memorized the stitch patterns and who like to work visually.
There are two versions: the full wrap size, about 21 inches wide, and a scarf version, about 11.5 inches wide.
The yarn...
I wanted this to be a light piece, so chose sport weight yarn. As for the whole Layer Collection, the yarn is from Americo Original. The brown wrap is made from the very soft Baby Suri. The cream scarf is made from Pima Cotton.
And then the oldest child, my sweet little donkey of a boy, went and broke his arm. Apparently it had something to do with jumping off a large rock on to a tree branch. It's probably better that I don't know the details. And of course it's his right hand (goodbye clarinet) and of course it requires a long arm cast that can't get wet for One Thousand Weeks.
But it's fine and he's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Say it one more time and you'll believe me right?
The Shetland Museum and Archives has an amazing online photo library, and it includes a large section on textiles. In the Knitwear gallery, you can look at great old photos of Fair Isle sweaters, knitting factories, and fishermen's sweaters. I like examining these grainy old photos of fishermen's sweaters—called ganseys, guernseys, or frokes—for the combination of stitch patterns. They are always relatively simple. Mostly knits and purls, geometric, sometimes a few small cables. The construction of the sweater is reflected in the geometry of the texture.
There is, of course, a very popular gansey inspired pattern on Ravelry; Jared Flood's Guernsey Wrap. And when one is coming up with design ideas, one tries to not repeat patterns that are already out there. So I filed the gansey thing away.
But the idea of making a wrap pattern with no lace, no frills, only knits and purls, stuck with me. And I think that the gansey tradition is so embedded in knitting that it will never be exhausted. Too many possibilities left to explore.
And so, Lexicon.
The name? I love the name, for Three Reasons.
Reason the first: It's a cool word and rolls off the tongue.
Reason the second: It has only been used once before on Ravelry. (Naming is tricky; my Sonnet wrap is the eleventh pattern with the word "sonnet").
Reason the third: Lexicon means an inventory of words. And it's nice to think of the knit and the purl as the knitter's lexicon. (Are you muttering, oh god Megan, stop being so cerebral?)
Reason the fourth (bonus reason!): All five patterns in Layer are named with a linguistic or literary word: Sonnet, Couplet, Ode, Lyric and Lexicon.
The pattern...
Very, very simple. It combines, really, only 3 stitch patterns. A "herringbone" motif, garter stitch, and a garter stitch rib.
The pattern is charted, for those of you who like charts.
The pattern is also written out, for those of you who like words.
And, there is also a to-scale illustration of the wrap, with each section marked, for those of who have memorized the stitch patterns and who like to work visually.
There are two versions: the full wrap size, about 21 inches wide, and a scarf version, about 11.5 inches wide.
The yarn...
I wanted this to be a light piece, so chose sport weight yarn. As for the whole Layer Collection, the yarn is from Americo Original. The brown wrap is made from the very soft Baby Suri. The cream scarf is made from Pima Cotton.
