Exploring the Entrelac Stitch Pattern

Ever since the first time I saw entrelac I was captivated. I was a beginner knitter so when I looked at the instructions they were so intimidating that I recoiled in horror and never gave it a try.

Isn't it lovely though? That woven look is so delicious. Makes me shiver.

Years later and many layers of experience behind me, I decided to give it a try. With experience it was fairly straightforward to knit up a swatch. It's interesting, because my stitch dictionary has a purse project with entrelac sides and categorized it as for experienced knitters yet I have seen many patterns and videos online for entrelac basic instructions that categorize the stitch as advanced beginner. The reality is probably in-between. I certainly would not categorize it as a beginner project, even for advanced beginner. It's a medium process. As in everything in knitting, if you can knit and purl you can do anything. I just think that a beginner would be frustrated doing entrelac.

The results are awesome though! Beginner or experienced or in-between, if you are determined to learn entrelac it's so worth it. The backside is rather unattractive. Picking up stitches along the edges of the rectangles leaves a dotted line of color and the lovely bulging on the right side of the work that creates the woven effect is a concave of attractiveness on the backside. It lends well to projects where only the front side shows.

I made this cowl with one skein of yarn. I knitted it flat on circular needles and mattress stitched the sides together. If not for the different colors of the edge triangles the join would not even be easy to find. Using a variegated yarn with long strands of color changes is the ideal choice for entrelac. I enjoyed this choice much more than changing colors at the end of each tier. If you have to stop and change colors you have to cut the yarn at every end because the next row starts too far away to strand the yarn in the back. That leaves a lot of ends to weave in and a lot of shortened lengths of yarn if you decide to tear it out again for some reason.

This cowl is made with 5 st rectangles. You can make the rectangles 5 to 10 stitches long/wide. Just cast on a multiple of whatever number you decide to work and always pick up that number on the sides. For this cowl I cast on a multiple of 5 and picked up 5 stitches on each edge as I worked across. I don't have a picture here but I also made a cowl with 10 st rectangles. It worked up really quickly. Then I did a swatch of working in the round and purling backwards to avoid all the turning. That really works up faster, once you get the hang of knitting/purling backwards.

Now I am on the hunt for the perfect variegated yarn to make a scarf by knitting entrelac in the round (to hide that ugly back side) and seaming up tops and bottoms to make a thick, luscious entrelac scarf.