Stitch Guide: Feather and Fan

Feather and Fan, it’s one of those old stand by knitting stitches, a great introduction to lace knitting, and it looks impressive with out making a knitters eyes go crosswise looking at charts.  Why is it that this lace stitch is the gate way drug of lace knitting?  Is it because of the easy to remember row repeat, or the simplicity of the decrease and increase, or is it because it only has one lace row and three “easy” rows?  Could it be that the increase and decreases are set up in such a manner that you can easily grasp the concept of how a lace stitch moves and is built?  Yes, it’s all of these reasons.  This stitch pattern is one of the first lace stitches that many knitters learn, because of its ease.  You can be a beginner and pick up this stitch with just a few projects under your belt and it will make your scarves, hats and anything else you make look like you labored for hours and hours with a difficult lace pattern.  (And lets be honest who doesn’t want their friends, family and perfect strangers oogling their hand knit items.)

In the next few installments of Stitch Guide here on Blue Betty we will be looking at Feather and Fan along with some of its variations.  Lets start with the skills a knitter needs to accomplish this stitch.  First off you need to know how to knit and purl, check.  Secondly you need to know how to decrease by knitting two stitches together (K2tog), knitting two together is as easy as it sounds instead of knitting one stitch you knit to at the same time decreasing from two stitches down to one.  Thirdly, you need to know how to increase with either a yarn over (YO) or by making one (M1). Yarn overs are accomplished by wrapping your yarn over your right hand needle.  That’s it, done, complete, you just increased one stitch.  Yarn overs make pretty eyelets in your knitting and are very feminine.  We will get back to make one (M1) in a few weeks.  

Feather and fan and all its variations are knit with a multiple of 18 stitches.  The feather and fan pattern can be worked in different multiples to fit your needs though, and makes this pattern vary versatile.  For example you could use a multiple of 12, your pattern row would have 4 decreases and 4 increases, but for the sake of simplicity all the stitch patterns written out here for the feather and fan stitch pattern family will be written for a multiple of 18. 

Good Ol’ Feather and Fan

Worked Flat

R1: *(K2tog) 3x, (YO, K1) 6x, (K2tog) 3x*

R2: Purl All Stitches

R3: Knit All Stitches

R4: Purl All Stitches

Worked in the Round

R1: *(K2tog) 3x, (YO, K1) 6x, (K2tog) 3x*

R2: Knit All Stitches

R3: Knit All Stitches

R4: Knit All Stitches