Vertical Beats

Vertical Beats is a simple slip stitch pattern with big visual impact. It has a strong vertical texture and colored stripes that are created with yarns that change colors slowly. The slip stitches create vertical lines of color. The knitting is as easy—it's not quite as easy as Horizontal Beats, but still well within the world of travel or distracted knitting. The yarns are from three North American dyers: Freia Fine Handpaints, Gauge Dye Works, and Spincycle Yarns. Each company uses different approaches to creating long-repeat yarns: Freia Fine Handpaints make long, smooth transitions from one solid color to another. Gauge Dye Works is famous for their precision color changes to create remarkable stripes. Spincycle Yarns create moving plys: each ply changes independently so the yarns are moving marls. The color you call A will be used more quickly than the color you call B, because yarn B has slip stitches and A does not. If you are using a yarn that comes in 50g skeins, it is probably ok to have 3 skeins for color A and 2 for color B—just work until one yarn almost runs out and then bind off. Don’t feel limited by the exact colorways used in the samples—choose your own yarns and colorways. Anything goes!