Gensis of a Small Project or Form Follows Function

The headband I made a while back has proven to be very functional. I wear it almost every day. There's going to be a lot of winter yet to come. It might be nice to have another one, just for variety.

Tomorrow, if the weather isn't too bad, we will be driving to Chicago. I need some really simple car knitting with no shaping to speak of and a stitch pattern I can do on autopilot.

Putting those things together, I've decided to make another headband, using some yarn that was an experiment I did in handpainting a couple of years ago. I never could decide whether I liked it or it was too ugly to live. If nothing else, watching how the colors stack up will add some interest to that otherwise mindless stitching.

I want a stitch pattern that will be warm ("has good thermal qualities" as they say), and will stay flat without an added border. Plain garter obviously has these qualities, but that's a little too plain, even for this project. And plain garter does that lengthwise stretch thing: you know, the three foot scarf that ends up seven feet long. I don't want my headband sliding down around my neck after a few wearings.

So I've decided on garter with columns of slipped stitches.

I'll purl the slipped stitches on the wrong side, so they look like little ribs on the right side, adding some visual interest. (I'm not entirely sure this yarn needs more interest, but if I ever did this again in a more muted colorway it might be nice). The contraction of the slipped stitches will counteract the stretch of the garter. There are only two pattern rows. The Right Side and Wrong Side look very different so I'll never have to stop and ponder which one I'm on.

And I'll never have to count higher than three.