Monday 19 April 2010

Mrs Beeton's Peacock's Tail Stitch

I've been having a look at Mrs Beeton's book of needlework, and found this pattern. The picture looked really exciting, but I couln't make head or tail of the pattern, so here's my revised version. Hopefully it makes more sense:

Abbreviations:
K= knit
P= purl
SKP= slip one stitch knitwise, knit one, then pass slipped stitch off the right needle over the knitted one
K2tog = knit two stitches together
P2tog = purl two stitches together
SSP= slip slip purl (for clarification)

Cast on 13 stitches
Row 1: K4, *YO K* repeat between '*' 5 times, YO, K4 (19 stitches in total)
Row 2: P across (19 stitches)
Row 3: K2, SKP, K11, K2tog, K2 (17 stitches)
Row 4: P2, P2tog, P9, SSP, P2 (15 stiches)
Row 5: K2, SKP, K7, K2tog, K2 (13 stitches)
Row 6: P2, K9, P2 (13 stitches)

Repeat rows 1-6 until deired length in reached.

And this is how it should look *this sample was knitted on 4mm needles using aran weight yarn):



Mrs Beeton recommends it for edging a sofa cover - how about around the edge of an afghan, or table runner?

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much for posting this! I recently received a knit afghan that my grandmother made sometime in the 60's and I was trying to disect the knit patterns she used. It is most definitely the Peacock's Tail stitch. Your rewrite is very clear and easy to follow. Thank you again! :-)

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