The Tenth Ten Stitch

I've been very busy lately. What with my bedroom being full of knitted and crocheted squares (I'm organising yarn bombing for my local park's 100th birthday) and working on this year's big Christmas pattern (started well but now I'm stuck), it's taken me ages to get this finally finished. But here it is at last - my new Ten Stitch pattern.

Obviously it's called Ten Stitch Star and it's available as a free download from my Ravelry page

I designed my first Ten Stitch pattern, a square blanket, over ten years ago and it was its popularity that led me to join ravelry and think perhaps I ought to do more of this designing malarky.

 Since then, there have been lots of Ten Stitch variations, mostly blankets ...

Ten Stitch Blanket, Ten Stitch Twist,
Ten Stitch Corner and Ten Stitch Cable

There were a few others though. There was an early (and quite complicated) pattern for a scarf and a wide, curved wrap...

Ten Stitch Scarf and Ten Stitch Wrap

This scarf is a better pattern ...

Ten Stitch Wave

I have to say, my photography skills have got a bit better since then. This one was cleverly posed to hide the tatty old shed at the end of the garden - long since replaced ...

Ten Stitch Triangle

... it was very handy having a model living at home. Now I have to make do with the cats and they're not nearly so co-operative, or co-operative at all really.

I've just found another blanket so that makes nine Ten Stitch patterns before this one.

Ten Stitch Zigzag

The thing all these patterns have in common is that they're knitted in one continuous strip, starting from the middle and working in spirals - although they're not necessarily round - or starting at one side and working back and forth. Having used a square, a circle and a triangle, I could think of lots of other shapes to try but the difficulty was how to start them off.

I did experiment with working lots of strips at once, using stitch holders to hold the ones I wasn't actually knitting but I didn't really like it.

This is as far as I got before giving up on it; I may have another go at this one day, I think I could refine it now.

Anyway, back to the new and tenth Ten Stitch pattern. Ten Ten Stitches - how pleasing is that? Maybe I should stop at ten? So, the big breakthrough came when it dawned on me that, instead of working in one continuous strip, I could knit a central shape and then work separate, coloured strips around it. Of course I have to be able to knit the shapes and then work out how to angle the strips but I think this idea has a lot of possibilities. 

I'd been wanting to do a star blanket for a while so I spent mainly fruitless hours trying to knit a garter stitch star before realising that I had already done it.

These are my Advent Stars, published a few years ago and oh look, they're garter stitch stars. It really would help if I could remember all my patterns at all times.

So, I knitted a star and then started working strips round it. See those stitch markers? They're marking the middle of each side, where the stitch pattern changes.

Now normally I'm a little bit fussy about my colour choices ... well, all right, I'm downright obsessive. All the colours are carefully chosen and planned out in advance, no making it up as I go along for me. This time I decided to be brave and choose each new colour as I got to the end of a round. I can't say I felt comfortable with this but decided it would be Good For Me.

As you can see, I did end up using two shades of each colour - well, I had to impose some sort of control, didn't I? - but, for me, this is positively random. The blues in the middle and on the edge are actually different, maybe my photography's not so good after all. I ended up doing twelve strips, by which time one strip was using over 100g of yarn. It doesn't look like it would, does it?

You could, of course, plan your colours. Shades of one colour, going from dark to light (or vice versa) would look good and, if you want to use up lots of scraps, how about alternating a scrappy round with a solid colour? I look forward to seeing what people do with this pattern.

I have to say that, of all my Ten Stitch patterns, this is the one I've enjoyed knitting the most. It was a perfect balance of simple but not too boring. I think changing direction in the middle of the sides helped; what with that and the sharp corners, there was just enough variation to keep it interesting. I could have carried on and made it even bigger but suddenly realised I wouldn't be able to fit it in a picture if it grew much more.

As it was, I had to balance at the top of a big ladder to take the photos (please note my weed free patio, it won't stay like that for long). Strange things happen when you take a picture with one of the points nearest to you ...

... is it just me or does that point look like it's dropping off a flat surface?

I had a lot of fun folding it into pleasing geometrical shapes ...

It's not the most practical shape for a blanket but I think it would make a great play mat for a baby or a throw to go over a bed during the day.

So, that one took me nearly a year to make. Any suggestions for Ten Stitch number eleven?