How to Knit Herringbone Stitch

Have you all been following the Harmony Blanket Knitalong? I think I’ve mentioned it a few times, but it’s a knitalong that has been going on since January and continues through November with a new knit block each week, resulting in a big, cozy afghan by the end of the year.

Projects like this are a great opportunity to pick up new stitches and techniques, and a recent block used the herringbone stitch, which creates a really fun texture but might not be a stitch that everyone is familiar with, so Pia at Stitches n Scraps also put together a herringbone stitch tutorial with words and photos or a video if you’d rather to help you with the technique.

It’s really interesting how it comes together and once you play with it and get the hang of how to do it I’m sure you’ll want to make a project using this interesting stitch.

[Photo: Stitches n Scraps.]

Lots of craft designers are understandably frustrated about the proliferation of AI “designed” patterns and photos of projects that have no basis in reality. People who don’t know how to tell if a project is AI are often also frustrated when they see a picture for something but there’s no pattern because it’s not real, or they buy a pattern that doesn’t actually explain how to make the thing or ends up looking totally different from the picture.

Some designers have taken it upon themselves to try to make some of those AI patterns that we see online, often with hilarious results.

Katherine Foster was inspired by a famous AI elephant to make what she calls “AIlephant,” which is now a free knitting pattern on Ravelry.

Her prototype uses worsted weight yarn, but you can use whatever yarn you like to make different sizes of elephants.

The elephant features a cable running down the trunk and a different cable pattern on the back. It’s worked in pieces that are joined and stuffed as you go. It uses German short row shaping on the body and includes written instructions as well as a chart for the cable patterns.

Reading through the pattern, it sounds a little fiddly, which makes sense because it was designed to look like a pattern that isn’t real. But it’s doable, as evidenced by the handful of projects you can find on Ravelry. The ears on her version aren’t quite as big and round or maybe don’t sit in quite the same place as the AI version (which if you haven’t seen it there’s a photo of that on the projects page, too). But it’s a pretty honest replica of a dishonest photo, and a really cute elephant in its own right.

If you make this one I would love to hear about it!

You can grab the free pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Katherine Foster]

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