Diagonal stitches always seemed really complicated and never seemed to look anything like the photos in the book (for me anyway) until I realised that a lot of the 'logic' behind knitting that is described in the back of the book actually helps with decoding and deciphering the knitting instructions in the rest of the book. It's the same story most people will roll their eyes at - a bloke not properly reading the manual before embarking on some project or other!
BUT the epiphany came from understanding how stitch increases and decreases contribute to 'shaping' your fabric as you knit, quite often at the start and at the end of rows.
The stitches above (Diagonal ribbed stitches) work by pulling the fabric in a specific direction at the beginning of every 'right side' row and they're worked no differently from just about any other knit / purl rib combination. Those extra carry-over / slip stitches or knit together stitches are what perform the magic of pulling the fabric and lines of stitches in one direction or another (right or left). Clever stuff!
Similarly, I'd struggled with this stitch before:
Bamboo Stitch is awesome because it looks prettier than standard 'ribbed' stitches, but is so ludicrously simple to knit up, and gives your fabric a nice weight AND (for me at least) doesn't twist like mad meaning you end up with the nightmare of trying to flatten out your work at the end (so it's perfect for scarves).
So how to knit bamboo? Here's the pattern
For symmetry cast on multiples of 2 stitches, with 1 edge stitch on either side of your work (I knitted up a sample using 40 stitches which was a perfect number for a slim scarf width).
Row 1: Knit 1 (Edge Stitch), *Yarn Forward, Knit 2, Pass yarn forward stitch over the 2 knitted stitches* - repeat the instructions between * until the last stitch then Knit 1
Row 2: Purl all stitches
...and that's it! To explain a yarn forward (or yarn over) I just wrap the yarn over the needle without knitting it - Various folk describe this in different ways but it's not the same as slipping a stitch over as it gives you an increase before you perform the 'decrease' of hopping that yarn forward stitch over your other two knitted stitches.
As you can see from the photo, this also 'wraps' stitches in a nice bamboo-like cross-stitch that looks really nice and effective - and works even better with colour work if you weave in a 2nd colour in between rows.
Happy 2022 to those of you who find your way to this blog, and happy knitting / crocheting!
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