All Fool's Welt...

I have been writing up knitting stitches and combining them with photography to show how these stitches relate to "life." Not that knitting has to actually relate to life - it can be an escape from life or a distillation of life.  We can capture a "moment" in knitting - particularly in lace - just as we can capture a moment in photography.

Here is the first one -

All Fools' Welt...
...or Wager Welt.  This is a plain and very simple pattern based on garter stitch and stocking stitch. It's found in Barbara Walker's first treasury of knitting stitches.  Barbara includes an anecdote about the stitch, as well. From looking at the stitch, it's difficult to tell in an 8 row repeat how many rows are purled. The French called it Puzzle Stitch and the Germans called it Dispute Stitch. The English, however, believing that only a fool would not know the answer called it All Fools' Welt.

Here is the stitch from the Barbara Walker site. It looks like 3 rows of garter stitch and 3 rows of stocking stitch. To produce the 3 rows of garter stitch, you would knit 5 rows. For the 3 rows of stocking st, you would, Knit the first row, purl the return row and then knit the next row.  The pattern then goes into garter stitch again and so you would knit the return row.  Got the answer? 1 row is purled.

Here is my photo take on the stitch.

These are Christmas lights in Barcelona.  To me they look a little like rows of garter stitch interspersed with stocking stitch at least for the first and second set of lights. Winter celebrations also include the "Lord of Mis-Rule Day" and slap stick pantomimes - so I guess the name All Fools fits in here too.

Celebrate today!!