Dropped and Found

My friend Kathy tossed this knitting pattern at me a few weeks ago with a plea.  She really liked it, but was intimidated by the instructions to drop several stitches and then pick them up again.  I couldn’t understand what she was afraid of.  So I agreed to test knit this pattern.

Here is it, as designed by Jesse at Home.

Dropped and Found Wrap

Frankly, this is one of the easiest patterns I have ever knit.  It is a basic garter stitch rectangle.  The dropping and picking up takes place at the final two rows. I chose to use a bulky 2-ply yarn from Universal Yarn called Marled. I theorized that the frequent color changes would keep me from getting bored while knitting plain garter for several hours. Fortunately, I had a long, easy car trip during which most of the work took place.

Here’s how the braided sections are completed.  On the second to last row, drop three stitches roughly every 12 stitches.  Knit one more row, leaving the needle in place.  Now gently pull the dropped stitches apart all the way down to the bottom row.  Starting with the bottom four floats, use fingers or a crochet hook to braid the floats in groups of four back up to the top.  Put the top loop of each braid back on the needle and bind off.  Voila!

I can imagine several other uses for this decorative technique.  It would make an interesting treatment up a sleeve, or flanking the button band or center back of a cardigan. How else can you imaging using the dropped and found design element?