Make It Up As You Grow Along
There's a lot of room for modding in this project, but there are two main versions, Organised Chaos (scrap busting) and Boardwalk (stash busting or planned design). The concept can easily translate over to crochet, in your preferred basic stitch.
Organised Chaos
Yarn: designed in DK but chuck in 10ply and 12ply, and double stranded 4ply
Needles: 4.5/5/5.5 - depends on how squishy you want it
Cables: you'll need two on the longer side, or one main cable and scrap yarn
Skills needed: casting on, garter stitch, picking up stitches
You'll want around 600g of yarn. Collect all your nuggets and leftovers, and any random skeins that have been sitting around for too long. You'll want to use up the smallest ones first.
Cast on 15 stitches using your favourite stretchy cast on method.
Start using up your nuggets! If you don't like losing at yarn chicken (if you're aiming for clean garter stitch rows) then so long as you have three lengths of your live stitches, you should be good to go.
Section One of the sample has 36 rows (18 ridges). But if your nugget near there runs out or has more to go, just roll with it. When you decide the end of this section, leave the stitches active on the cable or transfer onto scrap yarn.
Section Two. If you have 36 rows, you'll want to pick up 19 stitches along one side of your rectangle. This includes a stitch from your cast on row. The last stitch is a bit awkward as it is connected to your live stitches. I tend to knit into the back of the picked up stitched for the first row, and then resume regular garter stitch.
Sections Three and Onwards. This will depend on how much length you add to the section you've just knit. You pick up a stitch for each ridge (return row). Knit until you've effectively doubled the size of what you had. e.g Section Two is the same size as Section One. Section Three is (roughly) the same size of Section One + Section Two. Section Four will be the same size as Section One+Two+Three and so on.
Keep going until you're happy with the size, or you use up your yarn.
Boardwalk
Yarn: DK, approx 6 x 100g
Needles: I used 5mm, but 4 or 4.5 will be fine
In my experiment I had 4 x 100g (and extra of the charcoal available) 1 x 70g and 1 x 75g
I started knitting based off the concept drawing and wrote up what I did as I went.
- MC: Charcoal
- CC1: Pink
- CC2: Beige
- CC3: Green
- CC4: Party
- CC5: Yellow
On a pick up row, I tend to knit into the back of the stitch. But if you have your own preferred method, please use that!
Boardwalk - Section Two
Leave your stitches live at the end of section one, or transfer to scrap yarn if you don't have a spare cable. If following this design, pick up 16 stitches along one side of your section. Then:
- MC Knit 8 rows
- CC1 Knit 6 rows
- CC2 Knit 8 rows
- CC3 Knit 8 rows
- CC4 Knit 8 rows
Boardwalk - Section Five & Six
Section Five: Pick up 22 stitches.
- MC Knit 8 rows
- CC1 Knit 6 rows
- CC4 Knit 10 rows
- CC2 Knit 10 rows
- CC3 Knit 10 rows
Section Six: Repeat Section Five
In case you haven't noticed, I've been shuffling three of the contrast colours to keep things interesting, but ultimately, you can do what you like. Now that six sections are complete, you can see how the charcoal is framing my colours and the pink adds a fun pop. As I make more progress (all these sections were knit over a very peaceful weekend). As I complete more sections I will add more updates, but I've got a busy couple of weeks ahead so hopefully there is enough here to keep you going if you steam ahead of me!