Maybe it was Spring erupting all around me. Maybe it was all the Blankety- Blank-Blanket knitting. I don’t know. But suddenly I was ready for a Knitting Challenge. Something complex that would take all my brain. Something fabulous that would make me ooo and ahh. Something that was maybe even a little bit intimidating.
The Fox Paws pattern had sat silent for months buried in a bag of Palette yarn just waiting for me to fidget over an endless row of plain knitting. It must have heard me sigh that evening because it whispered “Hey, do you want to step it up a notch or two — or fifty?!”
And I whispered back “Bring it on!”
And, hoo boy, what a ride it has been! This is the most difficult pattern stitch I have ever done. How can I describe it? You knit along building lumps of stitches (don’t even try counting them to figure out where you are because they are scrinched up all on top of each other like a mess of wooly worms) that, several rows later with the aid of multiple decreases stacked on top of each other (yeah……..), explode into flat tri-colored petals both upwards and downwards! It is the craziest darned thing I ever knit.
Who thinks of these things?! (Xandy Peters who designed the piece, obviously, but I am wondering where these techniques originated)
The pattern is done with 5 colors and you work each row with a single color, changing to the next color after 2 rows (except for the slightly shaped stockinette band at the end of the pattern repeat which is 6 rows of one color). Each pattern repeat is 16 rows — worked with the colors in a different order for each of the 5 sections which are worked 3 times. Except I have 2 sets of 5 colors (because I am just crazy like that…) and I will play with the sections (color-wise) as I go along.
I have worked through the 16-row repeat twice now (not counting the initial time when I messed it up halfway though and had to rip it all out and start again) and I am beginning to see how it works — kinda. Enough so that I can keep on track. The pattern is very well written, but I re-wrote it out in a way that makes more sense to me as I am working each row. And I use stitch markers (which I have to shift all the time, but are still worth it…really!) and I put a life line in the 16th row of each repeat as I go. And I pretty much ignore everyone around me and squeal if anyone speaks to me while I am working on it.
But it is worth it! So fascinating, so gorgeous. And so very bad ass.
I was working on it over a cappuccino at Forza and a very sweet young woman came over to see what I was knitting. I said I was making a stole and she looked at it and exclaimed “You’re knitting Fox Paws!” She was totally impressed. And after talking to me for just a minute or so, she backed away and quietly apologized for interrupting.
Fox Paws is awesome.