You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
They called me the hyacinth girl.
– TS Eliot, The Wasteland
THE LO-DOWN
winter is blasting outside our windows, and we’re dreaming of hyacinths, tulips and daffodils breaking through the ground come spring. until spring really does roll around, we’re keeping warm and knitting up hyacinth stitches on our needles. in our humble opinion, the hyacinth stitch ranks up there with things we put in the “instant gratification” category. it looks tremendously complicated, but it’s actually surprisingly simple, highly memorisable, and it just zips through the needles. we got a swatch 6¼ inches long with just 25 rows! (we’ll do the math in a bit, but if we had to guess it would probably take 2x as many rows to achieve the same length in stockinette).
purling 5 stitches together (which you can do easily with a crochet needle) and then making 5 stitches in the same stitch are just about the only tricky bits to this swatch.
THE LO-LO-DOWN
YARN J&V Clever Camel (worsted weight)
COLOR NATURAL
NEEDLE US6 / 4mm
SIZE (WxH) 5¼ x 6¼” steam blocked
STS 40 sts x 25 rows
LEVEL Intermediate
TYPE LACE; FAUX CROCHET
SPECIAL STITCH DEFINITIONS
P5tog: purl 5 stitches together, most easily accomplished with the use of a crochet hook (slip 5 stitches purlwise onto a crochet hook, wrap yarn around purlwise, and pull crochet hook through)
M5: make 5 stitches (K1,P1,K1, P1, K1) by knitting and purling into the back and front of the same stitch
3XK: insert needle as if to knit, then wrap yarn 3 times around needle, and finish the knit stitch
SWATCH CONSTRUCTION
CO 40 stitches
R1 (RS): K40
R2 (WS): K1 (edge), K1, [*P5tog, M5*] repeat* 6 times, K1, K1 (edge)
R3: P40
R4: K1 (edge), K1, [*M5, P5tog*] repeat* 6 times, K1, K1 (edge)
R5: P40
R6: 3xK40
R7: K40 (let the thrice wrapped loops drop off as you knit)
Repeat rows 2-7. The swatch above was knit over 25 rows.
RELATED PATTERNS
Laleh – a women’s sweater