Not that there’s a huge demand for this particular stitch pattern, but I’ve come up with a better way of doing a no-purl, horizontal rib.

What The Hell Is The No-Purl Horizontal Rib?

First of all, what is a horizontal rib? Basically, like its similar vertical rib of alternating columns of knits and purl, the horizontal rib is alternating rows of knit and purl rows.

This is the most recent 4×4 horizontal rib scarf that I posted about in the last blog. It’s basically 4 rows of back-and-forth knitting followed by 4 rows of back-and-forth purling.

It seemingly creates a wide band of garter-stitch fabric interspersed with thin furrows of stockinette stitch. Actually the wider band is two garter ridges with two rows of reverse stockinette in between it.

Which is my issue with horizontal ribbing…it was always difficult to get my head around what this combination of rows would look like. And since I have some difficulty distinguishing between garter ridges and reverse stockinette, I also had difficulties tracking where I was in a 4×4 row repeat of horizontal ribbing.

The mother of invention stepped in, and I invented (unvented) the no-purl horizontal rib stitch.

If that wasn’t unnecessary enough, I also wrote up a pattern for the no-purl, horizontal rib scarf (knit lengthwise) and published that as well – https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/no-purl-horizontal-rib-scarf.

I’ve priced the pattern for US$2.00, but that’s only for two reasons…to allow blog readers to contribute to the blog if they care to and to discourage the people who always download anything free. The last group of people often e-mail me with questions about the pattern and I get the impression they never even attempt to knit it. A mere $2 charge dissuades them from doing that.

If any of my readers would like this pattern for free, please contact me with your RavelryID. I would be absolutely pleased to gift it to you on Ravelry.

Current Knitting

One of the guys at the retreat gifted me with this incredibly rich colored hank of handspun/hand-dyed Rambouillet yarn from the farm visit at the last Men’s Knitting Retreat.

It looks crappy in the cake I wound, but it’s an incredibly interesting mix of uneven yarn and dyeing that looks fantastic. I added my own uneven handspun yarn (the orange) and started a shallow triangle scarf.

It’s a perfect match of yarns, so I’ve decided this scarf will be mine. Yes, all mine! It will end up being about 7′ long with random stripes of the orange yarn in it.