Duplicate Stitch: A Clever Solution for Kilt Hose

This is not exactly a knitting tutorial, but it may come in handy for knitters who make kilt hose or other tartan or argyle designs.

Nina at Nina Makes recently bought some kilt hose for her daughter, who has taken up Highland dancing, and while the colors were close to the tartan she’s wearing, the diagonal stripes on the socks were in gold, which stood out unpleasantly, especially because there was no gold in her red, white and black kilt.

Duplicate stitch to the rescue! Because these were purchased socks she had lines to follow, but this is a relatively easy way to jazz up plain knit socks as well. Just add some duplicate stitch in a contrasting color, whether in diagonal lines, diamond patterns, add an initial or a monogram, or anything else you like.

Do you ever use duplicate stitch to add color to a project? I’d love to hear about it.

[Photo via Nina Makes.]

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I can’t resist a pattern that’s both useful and a little silly, and that’s exactly how I feel about the Rybka pouch pattern from the delightfully named Rat and Sea Witch.

I know you’re going to ask, because I did, too. Rybka means little fish in Polish. (And because you’re also probably going to ask, Rat and Sea Witch comes from people’s attempts to say the designer’s name, Ratasiewicz, which if you say it fast kind of sounds like rat and sea witch.)

It’s easy to make a little fish bag in different sizes to suit your needs. The pattern has specific instructions for an Airpods Pro case and a pencil case, but you could change the length easily to hold more stuff, and change the size in general by working with a different weight of yarn.

The pattern calls for sock yarn and mohair held together to make a fingering weight gauge, but you could try it with heavier yarn and see what size bag you end up with.

Whatever size you make it, this looks like a fun project for holding trinkets or everyday items. The mouth of the fish is the mouth of the bag, and it closes with a drawstring that is also the strap. I wonder, too, if you could make one of these with a small clasp frame that could be the fish’s mouth and then you could just work I cord straps that would attach to the sides of the fish.

I could also see stripes, or fish of different colors to use up your yarn leftovers. How about a sunglasses case with a little loop to attach to your bag? Once you start thinking about all the ways you could use a fish-shaped bag in your life, I think you’ll see that you probably need more than one.

If you make one of these I would love to know how it went!

You can grab a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Rat and Sea Witch]

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