Viking Square

I continue working on squares for the cable project. This time I selected an intricate cable pattern based on an Islamic four-knot from the book JennB loaned me, "Viking Knits & Ancient Ornaments".

It took me three tries to accomplish this. My 'issues' weren't with doing the cabled centre but the borders.

In my first attempt, I added extra stitches to each side and extra rows to the top and bottom - too many stitches and it was too darned big.

The next time, I tried it, it wasn't big enough. Rip! Then I thought I'd just knit the sample from the book and add a border around the edge afterwards to make it the right size.

I'm still not thrilled with it because I tried to be a smarty-pants and increase every row on the border rather than every other row and it distored the border. I may unravel the border and re-knit it in the round in garter stitch, increasing every other row until it's the right size. Or, heck, I'll just reknit another one with my updated idea.

This book had a different 'lifted increase' that worked quite well. Basically, you lift and knit the 'granddaughter' stitch (to use Lucy Neatby lingo) below the stitch you want to add to on the right needle and knit the 'daughter' stitch below the stitch on the left needle.

I have many more to go.