Waaaaay back,

months and months ago, I said I was going to finish assembling the last of the Warm up America afghan squares I got from the CYCA. I started. Then I got busy with other things. Then I sort of forgot about it.




One lone little strip put together


But now I'm motivated. Because of my library work schedule, I can't make it to the Charity Knitting knit along that The Sow's Ear is hosting the fourth Monday of each month. But I can finish this up and contribute to the cause.
(Thanks for the inspiration, Molly Bees)

Spoiler Alert: Answers to to the brainteasers below

If you don't want to know, don't read any farther

Don't say you weren't warned....................................

What do the words have in common?

For each of the words on the list, you can take the first letter, move it to the end. Read backwards and you will have the original word.

What do all three pattern stitches have in common?





They all result in the pattern I used on my Vacation Socks (of course its upside down on the socks, because I worked top down). So Anonymous was on the right track in noting the identical stitch multiple. And Leslie, a graph was indeed what I used to confirm my suspicion that they were alike.

The first version comes from The Complete Needlecraft Encyclopedia, published by William J. King, Ltd., Paris, Ontario, 1973

The second comes from McCalls' knit/crochet Encyclopedia, with a list of copyright dates extending from 1963 to 1966 (obviously a compilation).

The third comes from The Harmony Guides 450 Knitting Stitches (Vol. 2), 2007 edition (first published in 1986).

One interesting thing (or at least interesting to my tech geeky side), is that none of the versions uses ssk for a left leaning decrease. King and Harmony use sl 1, k1, psso, while McCall's uses k2tog through the back. I wonder if this is a difference between Canadian/British conventions on the one hand and American on the other?

The King version uses a fairly obscure double decrease, that, in theory at least, might make a more balanced center point than the more common slip one, knit two together, pass slipped stitch over. But the yarn I was using doesn't show that much detail, so I stuck with the common one.