zigzag

while at the laundromat last night, i decided to cast on a little vest for my little guy, in a who-ish style: yellow with an aqua zigzag stripe, and a row of red question marks.

but i did not want to carry the aqua behind the yellow when not in use, thus using up five times as much yarn as needed for a simple zigzag.

so i thought, "this should be simple, i'll just do a wrap of aqua after every yellow stitch, and then knit with those wraps when the time comes." and it was that simple! so i'm assuming a million people have figured it out already, but nonetheless i feel pretty smart for unventing it again.




the trick is to always hold the yellow (or whatever main colour you're using) to the right side of work, and the aqua (or contrast colour) to the wrong side. which means, after the setup row (which isn't so bad), a lot of bring-to-front.

for the record:

zigzag over a multiple of 8 plus 1 stitches:

row 1: *k1 aqua, yo aqua, (k1 yellow, yo aqua) seven times, repeat from * last stitch, k1 aqua
row 2: *p1 yellow, drop aqua yo and use to p1 aqua, slip aqua yo, (p1 yellow, bring yellow to rs, slip aqua yo, bring yellow to ws) five times, drop aqua yo and use to p1 aqua, repeat from * to last stitch, p1 yellow
row 3: *k2 yellow, drop aqua yo and use to k1 aqua, slip aqua yo, (k1 yellow, bring yellow to rs, slip aqua yo, bring yellow to ws) three times, drop aqua yo and use to p1 aqua, k1 yellow, repeat from * to last stitch, k1 yellow
row 4: *p3 yellow, drop aqua yo and use to p1 aqua, slip aqua yo, p1 yellow, bring yellow to rs, slip aqua yo, bring yellow to ws, drop aqua yo and use to p1 aqua, p2 yellow, repeat from * to last stitch, p1 yellow
row 5: *k4 yellow, drop aqua yo and use to k1 aqua, k3 yellow, repeat from * to last stitch, k1 yellow

it looks nonsensical written down, but once you start doing it, it's obvious (i think) and can be done with any number of stitches in the pattern repeat that you like.

here are a few more photos for your elucidation