Arabesque is a painterly pattern of curved lines and shapes created by the interplay of colors in stranded intarsia knitting. Five overlapping background colors create the curvilinear forms, and the spaces between are filled with stranded motifs in contrast colors.

 

The background colors are worked in progressions of related shades or color families, so relationships between neighboring colors are constantly evolving; each stranded motif offers an opportunity to try a new color combination.

 

The chart can be used to make a variety of projects, from a square or rectangular cushion or pillow cover to larger items like a shawl, a blanket or an afghan.

 

The image on the left illustrates a larger shawl-sized project measuring approximately 71ins/180cm by 19.5ins/50cm with 15 chart repeats requiring approximately 234g/1080yds/990m of yarn.

The swatch shown below was knit with five repeats of the chart on 3.25mm/US3 needles using approximately 78g/360yds/330m of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift in lots of colors.

 

Gauge: approximately 20 stitches and 24 rows = 4ins/10cm in stranded knitting

 

Techniques include stranded intarsia, trapping, splicing and simple lace stitches.

 

The pdf includes a chart and instructions, notes on intarsia and a splicing phototutorial.

 

$7.00

 

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The reverse of the knitting