To Sarah Gilbert
Published in 2008 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang
An imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Text copyright © 2008 by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown
Photographs copyright © 2008 by Michael Crouser (unless otherwise noted)
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
All patterns and projects by Larissa Brown, with the following exceptions,
all used and adapted to fit this book by permission.
Square pattern for the Barn-Raising Quilt, copyright © by Shelley Mackie.
Entomology Hat and Mitten Set, copyright © by Adrian Bizilia.
Blue Ribbon Scrap Wrap, copyright © by Sarah Gilbert.
Pinwheel Blanket, copyright © by Genia Planck.
Blessingway Blanket, copyright © by Hannah Cuviello.
Vélo Cycling Sweater, copyright © by Adrian Bizilia.
Recycled Sweater Pincushion, copyright © by Meshell Taylor.
Felted Peace Crane, copyright © by Seann McKeel.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brown, Larissa Golden, 1968-
Knitalong : celebrating the tradition of knitting together / Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown ; photography by Michael Crouser.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-58479-665-7
1. Knitting. 2. Knitters (Persons) 3. Online social networks. I. Brown, Martin John, 1966-II. Title.
TT820.B83 2008
746.43’2041–dc22
2007020908
Editor: Melanie Falick
Designer: Jess Morphew
Production Manager: Jacquie Poirier
The text of this book was composed in Century Schoolbook and Nimbus Sans.
Printed and bound in China
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
115 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
www.hnabooks.com
Introduction My First Knitalong
Chapter One Hanging Out
Knitting Cafés
Knitting Circles and Meet-Ups
Spectacles and Knit-ins
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
Pinwheel Blanket
Chapter Two Remembering
Knitting as a Cottage Industry
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
Socks 101
Knitting as Character Reform
Knitting in War and Peace
Chapter Three Finding Your Voice
Online Knitalongs
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
Meathead Hat
Knitting Blogs
Fine Art Knitalongs
Chapter Four Growing
Competing at the State Fair
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
The Fair-Along
Challenge Knitalongs
Collaborative Knitalongs
Chapter Five Giving
Swaps and Giving to Friends
Giving to the Earth
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
Recycle-Along
Giving to People in Need
Larissa’s Knitalong Diary:
Barn-Raising Quilt
Chapter Six Doing It Yourself
Abbreviations
Special Techniques
Sources for Supplies
Acknowledgments
Photo Credits
Doppio Gauntlets
French Press Cozy
Olive’s Afghan
Pinwheel Blanket
Socks 101
Victorian Baby Bonnet
Felted Peace Crane
Meathead Hat
Mothwing Shawl
The Pillow of Sei Shonagon
Vélo Cycling Sweater
Felted Nest
Blue Ribbon Scrap Wrap
Entomology Hat & Mitten Set
Eden Scarf
Blessingway Blanket
A Knitter’s Magic Yarn Ball
Traveling Scarf
Recycled Sweater Pincushion
Barn-Raising Quilt
y first knitalong came early in my knitting career: It was the day I learned to knit.
Actually, I don’t remember a specific day. What I do remember are long afternoons with my grandmother Olive. It was the 1970s, I was barely in grade school, and as I bobbed on the springs of her chenille couch, I worked obsessively on long rectangular strips. Sometimes I made garter-stitch slippers for Chet, my grandfather, who had “the sugar” (diabetes). My grandmother was in a zigzag phase, determined to leave a wide swath of New Jersey covered with acrylic chevroned afghans.
There wasn’t any difference between knitting and knitting “together” when I was learning with Olive. It’s the same for a lot of people today, no matter how old they are when they learn. That first day is a knitalong that can stay with a knitter for life.
“I’m kind of an oddball,” comments Denise, a reader of the knitting blog January One. “It was my grandfather who taught me to knit! The winter I was in fourth grade, Grandpa taught me how. I started with those little garterstitch house slippers and then went on to knit for my Barbie dolls. I always think of his rough, worn hands gliding like silk when he knit.”
Leslie, a knitter and homemaker from Pittsburgh, learned from her mom when a beach vacation turned rainy and all the guys split for home. “We sat in our jammies every day until the afternoon, watching movies and knitting,” she says. “Honestly, that is all I can remember doing for that couple of weeks. Maybe stopping to sleep and eat—maybe,” she jokes. It was a special time she’ll never forget.
“I learned how to knit thanks to my ex-boyfriend,” writes a blogger named Kadi, “who had been taught as a child by his mom. I remember him showing me, and the two of us just sitting in bed together, talking about our day and both knitting.”
The same ingredients occur in these stories again and again. There’s a knitter with a relative or a friend, together with that rarest of things: a long, drawn-out chunk of hours with little to do. A woman on a flight to Iceland finds the in-flight movie unwatchable and learns from her seatmate. Friends hole up in a riverside cabin; two knitters go in, three come out. An English sailor on the Indian Ocean in the sixteenth century sits down on deck, and a Tamil cabin boy shows him the needles. Knitting is an art that has been transmitted from person to person for centuries, and when knitters teach and learn, their friendships get richer, too.
Maybe taking up knitting is some sort of declaration that life should include more quiet hours and friends. A knitalong can help you find both.
The term knitalong emerged out of the Internet knitting culture of blogs and discussion groups around 2003 and 2004, when it was used most often to describe the practice of knitters in different places working on the same project during the same time period. While they didn’t all turn on their computers and knit at the same moment, they did pledge to make the same scarf, socks, or sweater pretty much simultaneously.
In this book, my coauthor (and husband) Martin and I expand the meaning of the word knitalong a bit. We define a knitalong as any organized event where people knit together for a common purpose or goal. There are thousands of such events going on every day. To name a few that appear in this book, a knitalong can be:
• knitters meeting in a café, gossiping and working on whatever projects they want
• professional hand-knitters gathering by a fire, singing songs, and telling stories to decrease the drudgery of piecework
• hundreds of people knitting the same hat pattern and posting pictures of their work on the Internet in a friendly competition to show the wittiest and wildest embellishment
• knitters from around the United States working on entries for their own county and state fairs and reporting progress on their personal blogs
• fiber artists collaborating internationally, using satellite weather data, traffic patterns, and yarn
• knitters collaborating via the postal service to construct blankets and hats for survivors of war and disaster
• and a thousand other things
There are so many variations on the knitalong idea that Martin and I couldn’t possibly cover them all. Instead, we bring you fifteen essays that profile the variety and richness of the ways people knit together and the reasons knitters find it so worthwhile. Along the way, we tempt you with twenty projects inspired by those stories—projects especially suited to the knitalong treatment.
For six of those projects, we’ve run knitalongs of our own. My Knitalong Diaries give some inside details about the experience, while photo galleries of just a few of the finished objects represent the dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of volunteer knitters who participated. We love the way different knitters working from the same pattern produce finished objects that are so remarkably individual, so we’ve posted the entire galleries for you to visit at knitalong.net.
The book is organized according to the basic experience a knitalong provides for today’s knitter. For example, Chapter 1 is about the simplest knitalong experience of all: hanging out with other knitters. After a brief introduction, we paint three specific scenes from the knitalong world: the burgeoning trend of knitting cafés, the time-honored tradition of knitting meet-ups in homes and nightspots, and the occasional knitting spectacle, like Stitch N’ Pitch night at major league ballparks.
We match up these stories with patterns like the Doppio Gauntlets and Pinwheel Blanket—patterns that are elegantly simple, so you can focus on the cocktails, or the ball game, and still not have to rip out mistakes when the night is over. For the Pinwheel Blanket, we ran our own very casual knitalong, resulting in a gaggle of blankets as diverse and individual as the people who made them. We share photos of a few along with my pinwheel diary.
Chapters 2 through 5 work much the same way. Chapter 2 takes time for remembering some of the knitalongs of the past and the reasons for them. For some, knitting used to be more job than beloved pastime. We sketch creative ways that peasants tried to reduce the drudgery of knitting socks for a living, and pair those stories with a simple sock pattern and knitalong story of our own: Socks 101, a project that helped some of our fellow knitters get over the fear of turning their first heels. A story about orphans who were compelled to knit for their own self-improvement is matched with our Victorian Baby Bonnet pattern. The chapter ends with an essay about the best-known reason for knitalongs: war. We contrast wartime sock drives with a contemporary knitalong and pattern that is a prayer for peace, the Felted Peace Crane from the knitnotwar 10o0 project.
Projects like knitnotwar 10o0, which produce multiple copies of a single design, show just how unique the work of individual knitters can be, even within the constraints of a pattern. Chapter 3 revels in this phenomenon, celebrating ways knitalongs can help you find your own voice as a knitter. Our Meathead Hat pattern invites you to take a simple pattern and make it your own with color and embellishment, and the variety in our Meathead Hat gallery shows a sample of how far those simple choices can take your work. Alternatively, you could express yourself by writing about knitting on your own online “blog.” The Pillow of Sei Shonagon is a project that invites you to celebrate beauty and the written word, taking inspiration from an ancient Japanese courtier who might just be the original blogger.
Chapter 4 delves into knitting together as a great milieu for growing in skill and confidence. Other knitters can buoy you when you feel swamped by a new technique, or they can egg you on to try something you’re scared of. Challenge-oriented knitalongs like the Knitting Olympics would be a great time to test yourself with the two-color stranded knitting in the Entomology Hat and Mitten Set. When we encouraged knitters to stretch their abilities by putting their work into competition in our State Fair Knitalong, we inspired, among other things, a blue ribbon-winning Scrap Wrap, reprinted here. Finally, we tell a story of knitters growing together through collaboration, and we offer the Blessingway Blanket as a possible joint venture.
Giving has always been at the heart of the knitalong experience, and is the subject of Chapter 5. Sometimes every click of the needles is a little prayer that a knitted object can make someone’s life—and maybe even the world—just a tiny bit better. There are a million kinds of generosity, but here we look at just three. Gifting among friends is eternal. A Knitter’s Magic Yarn Ball is a perfect bonbon of love for that most special friend—a fellow yarn lover—while the Traveling Scarf is eye candy for anybody. Still, these days it’s not just friends who need your gentle touch, it’s the whole earth as well. We match a story about environmentally aware crafting with a pattern for a sweet Recycled Sweater Pincushion. Last but not least, we look at the world of knitting for those in need with a focus on the simple, powerful, knitted afghan square.
If all these stories have gotten you itching to start a movement of your own, Chapter 6 winds up the book with a practical DIY guide to launching your own knitalong, based on interviews with successful knitalong organizers and experiences Martin and I have had over the past several years.
Over that time, I’ve found that knitting together can be inspiring, supportive, hilarious, solemn, and even world-changing. Knitalongs, regardless of setting or scale, are about being together, being human, and about a reverence for what other people make. My grandmother Olive isn’t with us now, but if she were, I’m sure she’d be surprised we even needed to write a book about knitalongs. For her, knitting together with family and friends was the obvious, and usually the best, way of doing it.
—Larissa Brown, Portland, Oregon
People have been knitting together for centuries, but knitalong is a new term, and many knitters are still confused about what it means and how it relates to the Internet. While this book demonstrates that a knitalong can mean a whole range of things, here is a quick fix on some of the most frequently asked questions (or FAQs in computer lingo) about the subject.
Q: What exactly is a knitalong?
A: Any organized event where people knit together for a common purpose or goal. The term began its life on the Internet in the early 2000s, but we are expanding it to include non-Internet knitting, too.
Q: Are there more knitalong opportunities if I have Internet access?
A: Definitely. Some knitting circles post schedule changes and other information on the Internet, even though they meet in person. Some knitalongs, like the Knitting Olympics (see page 102), are entirely Internet-based. In general, the Internet is a huge part of today’s knitalong culture.
Q: Am I required to have my own website or blog to participate?
A: Only rarely. The great majority of online knitalong events require only basic Internet access, not a blog for each participant. The organizers of each knitalong set their own guidelines and will usually state “the rules” up front.
Q: How do I find a knitalong I might want to join?
A: Finding a KAL online is as easy as using a search engine, such as Google.com, and typing in “knitalong” and perhaps the year or type of project you’re interested in finding. To find an in-person KAL in your community, the best place to start is your local yarn shop or an online group that is focused on your town or city and may provide a meet-up calendar.
Q: Why are the Internet and knitalongs so connected?
A: The Internet in all its forms—websites, blogs, e-mail, podcasts, and a dozen more modes of communication—is more than a source of free knitting patterns. As you’ll see, it enlarges your circle of knitting acquaintances beyond the borders of your town—way, way beyond to other countries and continents. It can help you find and communicate with your knitting peers: the people who are working on exactly the same sock or shawl, or who can help you finish that unfinishable neckline; the people who appreciate what you’re doing more than your spouse does; the people whose knitting inspires you. It doesn’t matter if they live in New Hampshire or New South Wales. Most of the galleries and knitalongs in this book would not have happened without that kind of communication.
Q: So what’s up with all the jargon?
A: Knitters typing away at their computer keyboards are constantly coming up with abbreviations and slang. Here are a few of the terms that may come up as you read our book or surf the Internet for online KALs:
Blog—an online diary, or weblog
KAL—knitalong
LYS—local yarn shop
WIP—work in progress
FO—finished object
UFO—unfinished object
Frog—to rip out a knitted work (“rip it, rip it”)
Tink—(knit spelled backward) to “unknit” a few stitches—less intense than frogging
Podcast—a sort of online radio show, most often independently produced by people who are passionate about a subject, such as knitting, and distributed freely
Swap—used online, this term describes any organized official penpal-type trade
There’s something timeless about sitting around with your fellow knitters and your works in progress. The warmth of a fire or a cup of tea, the clicking of needles, and the satisfaction of quiet talk—or no talk at all—has a completeness to it. Nothing more need be added.
It’s an experience you share with nearly every knitter from nearly every time and place. Digging around in old travel-ogues, you might unearth a quote like this:
“I was tempted, after breakfast, into the ladies’ cabin,” wrote the intrepid female traveler Matilda Houstoun from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico in 1845, “where I remained because I was pleased and amused by what was going on. The wife of the captain . . . took great pains to teach me the art of knitting, in which she was wonderfully skilled, and I in return, answered her questions about England.”
Something about knitting seems to make it easier to listen and bond. When Matilda left the ship, the captain’s wife gave Matilda the hat she had been working on. Matilda was charmed—she prized the hat “as a proof of kindness and good feeling.” It was just one of a thousand friendships that have been sealed by knitting, much to the bafflement of less crafty types.
Today the experience is much the same—though it doesn’t often happen by coal fires or in creaking ship cabins. This chapter looks at three places knitters are hanging out today.
Cafés dedicated to knitting and knitters are burgeoning in popularity. Combining a yarn shop with a casual venue to knit, eat, and chat means you have a dependable way to satisfy your craving for knitterly company.
Knitting circles and meet-ups can be found in every size and level of intensity, from intimate get-togethers of just a few friends, to a dozen or so gathered for a local stitch ’n bitch, to knitting “services” of the Church of Craft with enough participants to fill a lecture hall. These meet-ups are a way to see the same set of knitters again and again, compare progress on projects, and make friends along the way.
Finally, there are times when knitters just want to make a spectacle of themselves. Events like major league base-ball’s stitch N’ Pitch and Worldwide Knit in Public Day take knitting to the front and center of people’s attention. For some it’s just a good time, but for others it’s a way of coming out of the closet and saying, “I knit and I’m proud.”
At knitalongs like these, you want projects that interest you but aren’t so complex they make it hard to socialize. When you set out to knit among friends, it’s good to have a lot of simple work to knit on. Consider projects like the Doppio Gauntlets, French Press Cozy, or Olive’s afghan. And last but not least, Genia Planck’s mesmerizing Pinwheel Blanket is the basis for the first of Larissa’s Knitalong Diaries, where you’ll discover how a simple pattern can yield a flowering profusion of perfect little blankets, leaving knitters with a lot to be proud of, and just as good, a lot to talk about.
arah Hickerson has lived in a lot of interesting places in her life, from the rolling hills of Tennessee, to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, to two years in a tiny West African village called Koundian, on a stint for the Peace Corps. But nowadays she’s spending a lot of time on the couch in the back of Mabel’s Café & Knittery in Portland, Oregon. Sarah is a labor and delivery nurse-in-training at a public hospital, and Mabel’s is a “knitting café”—a combination yarn shop and coffee bar. For a knitter with an extraordinarily stressful job, Mabel’s is a perfect refuge. Most of the time, just being there is all the knitalong Sarah needs.
“I’m not just a regular, I’m the regular at Mabel’s,” she jokes. Three or four mornings a week you’ll find Sarah on that couch, surrounded by cubbyholes overflowing with wool, cotton, and silk goodness, enjoying a double soy latte—an order the staff has memorized.
Though Mabel’s can get busy in the morning serving commuters with coffee (in the evening, classes and groups can order beer, cake, and wine) there’s a palpable calm to the place. For some reason, wireless signals for phones don’t work well inside. People tend to tuck their devices away to beep another time. It’s a place just a little bit removed from the world, which means it’s the perfect place to play with yarn and enjoy sympathetic company.
Sometimes Sarah works quietly on one of her impulsive knitted projects, like the giant felted beet she’s making for a neighbor’s toddler. Sometimes she chats with whoever comes by. Usually, she does both. Her company over at the café tables might be an eight-year-old devouring a cookie and up to his elbows in a glittering fuzzball of novelty yarn, a group of glamorous women sharing tea and plucking away at scarves, or a new mom reaching around the curve of her slinged newborn to work a purl row. And if any of these knitters runs out of supplies or discovers a problem—with their double espresso or with the cable they’re working—the staff is right there to help.
Sarah might be a little more enthusiastic than most, but she’s hardly alone in her love for knitting cafés.
In recent years, knitting cafés have been popping up like dandelions on a summer lawn. Of course, people have long hung out around the big, inviting tables at yarn shops, or gone to knitting classes and events featuring food and drink. And in the United Kingdom and Japan, weekly or monthly knitting parties are often sponsored by restaurants or coffee shops.
But the full-time yarn shop and café combination is a relatively new and North American phenomenon. Suzan Mischer’s Knit Cafe in Los Angeles was a pioneer, opening in 2002. Unlike traditional yarn shops, which vary in the degree to which they encourage industrious loitering, Knit Cafe was designed for full-time hanging out. “I just wanted to have a place where I had the music I loved, a cup of coffee and a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere,” Suzan told the New York Times.
The idea spread. In New York, The Point Knitting Cafe asks customers to “eat, knit, and be happy.” In Maine, the Knitting Experience Café beckons with its big red couch. North of Seattle, Washington, Village Yarn & Tea Shop specializes in tea alongside their cottons and cashmeres. Some, like Close-Knit Cafe in Louisville, Kentucky, offer free wi-fi for those who want to surf the Internet while they sip amid the fibers. At Lisbet’s Knitting Cafe in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, the coffee and tea are complimentary. And at the Sow’s Ear, a knitting store and coffee shop in otherwise quiet Verona, Wisconsin, late-night knitting eves have been expanded due to unexpected popularity.
No matter where these cafés bloom, the basic idea is the same. Knitting cafés aren’t just places to buy yarn, they’re places people can meet and knit in comfort and company, and maybe even cross a few paths with people they’d never meet if they didn’t have knitting in common.
“Conversations start with ‘What are you knitting?’ but from there, anything can come out of your mouth,” quipped James, a New York fitness instructor and knitting café patron, to US News & World Report. Jocelyn, a knitter and photographer in Calgary, has a habit of going to a knitting café once a week, partly to meet people she doesn’t have a lot in common with. The bond of knitting is enough to start a conversation, and tea and cupcakes don’t hurt, either.
Knitting cafés strike a rare balance between a completely public site—where whipping out your knitting needles might make you stand out like a wayward purl on a field of knit stitches—and staying at home, where you can be yourself but surprises and inspiration are harder to find. At a knitting café, there is no shortage of supplies or advice. If you run into a problem, you can duck over to the counter for advice or grab a row counter from the sale bin.
It’s such a perfect combination that for Liz Tekus, the owner of the Cleveland, Ohio, yarn store Fine Points, adding a tearoom to her shop was a natural evolution. She saw how much her customers were getting out of their interactions at the store. They were lingering, talking, and hanging out in the backyard, even though it wasn’t officially part of the store. Casual encounters were becoming real friendships.
“Some of these women have serious things they’re going through,” Liz says, listing a few: divorces, sons at war, illness. The camaraderie of knitting together was obviously a great pleasure and relief for them. Rather than crack down on their loitering, Liz made a space for them to revel in it. “This is a place where they can escape from their lives,” she says.
Back on her couch, Sarah Hickerson would probably agree. The scene at Mabel’s—long stretches of peaceful work and conversation, without pressure to produce and compete—reminds her of the pleasant gatherings of women in Koundian, her Peace Corps village.
“It’s a coming together of people, where we can sit and time doesn’t really matter,” she reflects. She’ll have to go back on the clock and help deliver some babies tonight, but in all likelihood, she’ll be back at Mabel’s tomorrow. She’s got a crazy idea for a knitted boat she wants to bounce off some sympathetic fellow crafters, and at Mabel’s, she’s pretty much guaranteed to find them.
Here are a few of the many knitting cafés that can be found in North America:
Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks, 8524 SE 17th Ave., Portland, Oregon; 503-258-9276; www.abundantyarn.com
Fine Points, 12620 Larchmere Blvd., Cleveland, Ohio; 216-229-6644; www.finepoints.com
Fringe! A Knit Cafe, 823 E. Third St., Tulsa, Oklahoma; 918-382-0411; www.fringe-cafe.com
Knit Cafe, 8441 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, California; 323-658-5648; www.knitcafe.com
Knit New York, 307 E. 14th St., New York, new York; 212-387-0707; www.knitnewyork.com
The Knitting Experience Café, 14 Middle St., Brunswick, Maine; 207-319-7634; www.theknittingexperience.com
Knit One Chat Too, #509, 1851 Sirocco Dr. SW, Calgary, Alberta; 403-685-5556; www.knitonechattoo.com
Lisbet’s Knitting Cafe, 123 W. Court St., Doylestown, Pennsylvania; 215-230-9970; www.lisbetsknittingcafe.com
Mabel’s Café & Knittery, 3041 SE Division St., Portland, Oregon; 503-231-4107; www.mabelscafe.com
The Point, 37a Bedford street, new York, new York; 212-929-0800; www.thepointnyc.com
The Sow’s Ear, 125 S. Main St., Verona, Wisconsin; 608-848-2755; www.knitandsip.com
Village Yarn & Tea Shop, 19500 Ballinger Way NE, Shoreline, Washington; 206-361-7256; www.villageyarnandtea.com
The Yarn Garden Sipperie, 1413 SE Hawthorne Blvd., Portland, Oregon; 503-239-7950; www.yarngarden.net
Any knitting café worth its salt should be able to serve you a doppio con panna, or double shot of espresso with whipped cream, and this pair of arm warmers is reminiscent of nothing so much as that sweet little drink. They deliver a double shot of two colors of luscious yarn swirled together using simple cables, and are topped with a frothy, creamy edge of a special bulky wool. Delicious.
FINISHED MEASUREMENTS 7″ circumference at wrist; 10″ circumference at elbow; 14¼″ long (to fit average adult woman)
YARN Malabrigo Worsted (100% merino wool; 215 yards/ 3½ ounces): 1 hank each #181 Marron Oscuro (A) and #161 Rich Chocolate (B); Blue Moon Fiber Arts® Leticia (100% handspun wool; approximately 80 yards / 3½ ounces): 1 hank Spring Fling (C)
NEEDLES One pair straight needles size US 9 (5.5 mm). Change needle size if necessary to obtain correct gauge.
NOTIONS Stitch marker; cable needle (cn)
GAUGE 16 sts and 24 rows = 4″ (10 cm) in Stockinette stitch (St st) using A
NOTE
Colorways that are similar such as those shown, will blend subtly. The more different your colors are from one another, the more they will stripe.
Abbreviations
C6F: Slip next 3 sts to cn, hold to front of work, k3, k3 from cn.
C6B: Slip next 3 sts to cn, hold to back of work, k3, k3 from cn.
Stripe Pattern (any number of sts; 4-row repeat)
*Work 2 rows with A, then 2 rows with B.
Repeat from * for Stripe Pattern.
RIGHT GAUNTLET
With Long-Tail CO Method (see page 156) and C, CO 28 sts.