Last week, I got caught up in my twisted stitches and forgot to talk about the structure of spiral ribbing. Spiral ribbing is one of those slightly magical stitches. I've used it in the past for tube socks. It works well because you can twist (or untwist) the ribbing while you are wearing the sock, to adjust the fit. Twist it more, it's larger. Twist it less, it's smaller. When I wash them, I twist them up a bit, and lay them flat to dry.
I think I read somewhere that spiral-rib tube socks were popular to make during World War I. Since they don't have a set heel, they take a long time to wear out, which is good, especially when wool is being rationed. The book I think I read that in is in storage, so I'm sorry that I can't point you to an actual source on this. I would be grateful to anyone who could let me know.
Any size of ribbing can be used as a basis for spiral ribbing. The structure of the fabric lies in moving the column of your ribbed stitches over by one stitch every x rows, where x is the number of knit (or purl) stitches in your rib, plus 1. This can be altered when needed, but it's the general idea.
In other words, you would work 2 x 2 spiral ribbing this way:
(number of stitches divisible by 4)
- k2, p2 around (for 3 rounds)
- p1, then k2, p2...until you reach the last 3 stitches, k2, p1 (for 3 rounds)
- p2, k2 around (for 3 rounds)
- k1, then p2, k2...until you reach the last 3 stitches, p2, k1 (for 3 rounds)
Three by three ribbing would be worked over a number of stitches divisible by 6 and each section of the rib stitch would be worked for 4 rounds.
One by one ribbing would be worked over a number of stitches divisible by 2 and each section would be worked for 2 rounds. I'm not sure how much spiral texture it would give, though.
The ribbing doesn't need to be symmetrical, either. Knit 3, purl 2 ribbing or any other sort of thing would work, too, but I would swatch it first to make sure it gives you the structure you want.
When I started working on last week's pattern, I realized that I could take the general structure of the spiral rib stitch and make it a bit more fun to work if I twisted the knit stitches every once in a while, too. I wanted to use a 2 x 2 rib, which means 3 rounds of each section, but I added the twist round as its own round, so I actually worked 4 rounds before I moved the ribs along.
Cheat Sheets and Super Swatches
Instead of a pattern this week, I'm going to give you a cheat sheet for waist shaping. This is the beginning of a series I have planned. Please either drop me a line here or visit the show's Ravelry page and let me know if you have any suggestions for other topics I could tackle this way.
Rounding Numbers
You will notice, in my example on the cheat sheet, that I sometimes keep a calculation written as a fraction, instead of rounding it off. I do this so that, on the next step, when I divide or multiply it again, I can avoid introducing too much rounding error into my work. This sounds finicky, but sometimes it's enough to make a difference between rounding up or down on the final calculation. If your answer is 4.25, you will probably want to round down. If it's 4.6, you might round up. The difference between those two figures can be real, but it can also be a result of rounding earlier in the work. And, anyway, I never said I'm not finicky.
Conversation
Renee Baines of the Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation Department and I talk about the upcoming Celebration of Fiber Arts at Salomon Farm.
2010 Uses for Gauge Swatches
Number 16: To test the structure, depth and difficulty of your spiral rib stitch.
