Stairway to Heaven Lace Knitted Ribbon

Last week, we explored the Picot Loops ribbon as an idea for using elements of lace edgings in new ways. This week, let’s continue the discussion with the other version, Stairway to Heaven, that is included in the Knitted Ribbons pattern.

This ribbon is similar to the heading portion that might be found on some lace edging patterns such as those designed to look like hem-stitching, or through which a ribbon itself might be woven. This type of heading can be made in many ways, but they all have a stairway, or ladder-like rung look in common. Let’s look in more detail about the approach used here (and some variations you might want to play around with, too).

Stairway to Heaven Knitted Ribbon

Using a single yarn over as though it were a double yarn over

Row 2 of Stairway to Heaven says “p1 then k1 into yo of previous row”. Effectively, we are increasing a stitch in the yarn over of the previous row.

This is similar to what we discussed earlier this year in the Tips & Techniques article  Substituting a single yarn over for a double yarn over eyelet. There are 2 minor differences:

1. We are reversing the sequence of doing the k1 and p1 which was the example used in that article. There’s a bit of a difference in the results under the microscope, but hardly any. In fact, try the k1 and p1 sequence in your ribbon and see if you like it better, or if you feel it even matters. There are detailed step-by-step photo instructions in the article if you need some extra help.
2.  The article’s focus was geared towards substituting a single yarn over to intentionally reduce the size of a double yarn over planned for in a pattern. In the ribbon pattern, I designed for using a single yarn over to start with. The extra stitch that is worked into the single yarn over is decreased out immediately on the following row to result in the stairway or ladder-like rung effect.

This would be a good time to re-read Playing around with variations of the double yarn over. Even though this article was focused on the double yarn over, likewise to the discussion above you can experiment with any of these sequences on the single yarn over of Row 2  Stairway to Heaven pattern.