Ten Stitch Twist

I just started knitting Frankie Brown's Ten Stitch Twist Blanket. She has the neatest charity concept - she's selected a charity close to her heart - the Children's Liver Disease Foundation, and offers her patterns free on Ravelry, hoping that those who use her patterns will donate to the charity. This is a great way to support a charity when you select a pattern, then you can also give the finished product away to another charity if you like.

I'm using Palette yarn double stranded, two colors at a time. And, I'm alternating when the colors switch so it has a somewhat gradated look. I'm going to keep knitting until the blanket is 60" across. Alison commented that this construction technique is as close to crochet as knitting will ever get because you only have 10 stitches on your needles at any one time.

Double stranding two colors at a time, alternating the switch-outs for new colors to make gradual gradations.
Here is my color sequence in Palette yarn, from the center out:
Currant
Merlot Heather
Doe
Camel Heather
Suede
Cornmeal
Camel Heather
Doe
Verdant Heather
Bison
Merlot Heather
I’m changing one color every 3/4 round - dropping the oldest color and adding the next one on this list.

At the k2tog to join the new round to the circle, I’m only picking up half of the stitch from the body of the circle, like a lace join. I love the raised ridge that picking up the top half of that stitch creates (most visible in the top picture) on the back side of the blanket. The front side looks fine too, but doesn’t have that pronounced ridge. (Since garter stitch is reversible, I think of the back side as my “right” side since I like the way the spiral ridge looks.) I accidentally was picking up the bottom half of the stitch for a while, and while noticeable, not worth it to me to frog back to correct.

This is perfect meeting knitting because it requires almost no thought…. I decided to pick up my wraps, although you don’t really need to in garter stitch. I think it’s a little tidier to do so, and I finally figured out how to read the rows to see where a wrap pick up is. This is handy to know because for every round around the center, you increase one more garter row between the short row rows.

Tags: charity, wip

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Comment by Gwynedd on September 7, 2009 at 9:28am: beautiful blanket.

Comment by Jeanette on September 5, 2009 at 1:46pm: This is gorgeous and I am looking up the pattern immediately to check it out! Thanks for sharing.

Comment by Janet Carroll on September 2, 2009 at 1:23pm: Beautiful, and I like the idea of spiraling rather than squaring. Did you alter the pattern to do that?

Comment by Tina on September 2, 2009 at 1:11pm: Hi Kimberly - I don't know yet because I'm making the blanket bigger than the pattern calls for. You can go to the pattern page on Ravelry and do some quick calcs for the size you want to make. If you're double stranding, remember to multiply the number of balls by 2 - the pattern was written for worsted weight.

Comment by Kimberly Wilkinson on September 2, 2009 at 1:09pm: How many balls of palette yar do you need for this project 11???

Comment by salmonpi on September 1, 2009 at 5:26pm: Oh how I wish I had found this pattern sooner! I was looking for something like this for my brother's wedding/christmas gift, but I just ordered WotA for a crochet hexagon blanket!

Comment by The Yarnarian on September 1, 2009 at 12:08pm: What a brilliant idea, combining Palette yarn. I've been looking at this pattern for some time now, and I love the idea of using Palette doubled. Nice color gradations, I think.

Comment by Sock Girl on September 1, 2009 at 11:23am: What a great pattern!

Comment by melistress on September 1, 2009 at 10:59am: I love that! Yours is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that.

Comment by PickleSue on September 1, 2009 at 10:52am: Oh, I really like the effect of the 2 colors together. I remember an afghan I saw years ago in a Better Homes and Gardens book- they called it the Crayon Effect. I love it- especially in your colors.